GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 181, 15 September 1876, Page 14

GENERAL NEWS.

A religious writing from Rome to the editor of the ' Rosier de Marie, 1 says :—": — " The Sovereign Pontiff expects the severest trials for the Church, to come about in a very short time (the words in a very short time were underlined in the letter), so he exhorts us to redouble our prayers. A correspondent of the ' Catholic Sentinel ' of Oregon, gives the following account of ladies' work at tbe Woman's Pavilion in the Centennial Grounds :—": — " Your lady readers will no doubt be pleased to learn that in this department the finest needlework upon exhibition ! comes from the convents of Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto. Models of many of these establishments accompany the specimens of their work, and have nothing gloomy or monastic about them. On the contrary, they have lovely gardens and look like cheerful country houses, where one could live in great contentment and serenity. The Mother House of the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame, founded in Montreal in 1653, sends a great variety of fine work — lace work, and painting on velvet ; a folding screen of crimson rep, beautifully mounted with a design in leather work, which is very effective. It consists of birds and birds' nests in foliage. Borders, bannerets, and screens are painted in groups of calla lilies, roses, buds, pansies, tulips, and lilies of the valley upon white velvet. The Gray Nuns of Montreal send beautiful specimens of Honiton lace and handkerchiefs with needlework border valued at $300."

All Italy, from the Tagliamento to the Faro, has celebrated the seventh anniversary of an event which, at a time when the power of the German emperors was in its zenith, saved Italy and the world at large from the supremacy of the dynasty of Suabia, who were the Hohenzollerns of those days. In the middle of the twelfth century the German emperors were, or thought themselves, lords paramount of Italy too, and their dominion in those days was styled the Holy Roman Empire of German nationality. So thoroughly was the Emperor Frederick L, known by the name of Barbarossa, imbued with this idea that lie presumed to appoint two anti-popes, called "Victor IV. and Paschahs 111., in opposition to the lawful Pontiff, Alexander 111., who, at the CEcumenic Council of Besancon, had asked, " From whom does the emperor hold his crown if not from the Pope ? " The great cities of northern Italy, headed by Milan, espoused tbe cause of the true Pope. They built a city with walls made of stone and houses made of straw, and called it, in honour of the Pope, Alessandria deila Paglia. For twelve years the confederation of Italian cities carried on an intermittent war against the powerful Cresar, till in the end, on the 29th of May, 1176, they defeated and destroyed his army in the battle of Legnano. Frederick himself only escaped with bare life, and twelve months after was glad to do homage to Alexander 111. at Venice. It was a second Canossa, from which the German empire never recovered, and which raised the Papal power to its pinnacle. These tacts are but too little known among Catholics outside of Italy, and well may Italian Catholics look back with pride upon an achievement by winch they freed their

country from the northern yoke under the auspicei of their natural and safest leader — the See of Rome — 'Universe' A correspondent sends us the following account of an extraordinary run from San Francisco to Liverpool by two Teasels, which will be found of no little interest to our nautical readers :—": — " On the 26th April, there arrived at Liverpool two American ships, the J. B. Brown, under the command of Captain Kezar, and the Southern Cross, under command of Captain Ballard. The two ships towed out through the heads at San Francisco at six o'clock on the morning of December 31st, 1875, side by side, discharging their pilots at the same time, and passed the Faralone Islands together. Met each other the next day and parted company that night. Met again on the line in the Pacific, and met again in the neighbourhood of the island of Pitcairn, in the South Pacific, and did not see anything of each other again until in about three or four degrees of south latitude on the Atlantic side. Here they had it nip and tuck for a week or ten days, watching each other as a cat does a rat. Finally a circumstance took place which the master of the Southern Cross says he never experienced before during a command in the East India trade for twenty-six consecutive years Both ships arrived on the equator side by side, bearing by compass due east and west, and on working up their latitude they found no latitude at all, not a fraction either way — in fact, they were exactly on the equator. From this point they parted company. Met again in the northeast trades, sailed in company for a week or so, then parted. Met again off Holyhead and took tugs from the same company. Towed up the Mersey side by side, and had the dock gates been wide enough they could have entered side by side. As it was, the Cross led the way in, the Brown following within a foot of her all the way." — Liverpool paper. A Philadelphia correspondent of the ' Connecticut Catholic,' speaking of the Catholic representation at the Centennial Exhibition, says : "In art we shall have some of the finest paintings and mosaics in existence. The Pope has kindly forwarded in care of our Most Rev. Archbishop, a few of the choicest treasures from the Vatican Art Gallery. One grand mosaic, "The Ruins of Psestum," is composed of upwards of 250,000 pieces, in small cubes of enamel within a space of about five by three feet, and represents clouds, mountains, water, trees, flowers, etc., requiring the use of more than 10,000 shades of primary colors, and tlie labor of many years to perfect it. Another gem in its way is a magnificent table of about thirty inches in diameter, divided into nine section*, each one being a view of some note i building or work, all Koman scenes. The centre piece is a history in stone of the foundation of the Eternal City. There are many others of great merit and the entire collection will prove one of the greatest attractions of the Memorial Hall." To be an English author or an English painter of any note now-a-days means, according to general gossip, to be nothing less than a millionnaire. They say that George Eliot has made £40,000 by the sale of " Daniel Deronda," that the lafce John Foster realised £20,000 on the sale of his " Life of Charles Dickens," and Mr. Hepworth Dixon pocketed £25,000 by his three editions of "Her Majesty's Tower." All very good and comfortable truly, but mere nothings in comparison to some of our painters' annual pickings. It seems that Mr. Millais has made £10,000 per annum during the last ten years, and that he has spent £30,000 on a new house of hiß in Kensington. And yet we hear almost every day of cases of death from starvation in the midst of a community that can afford to spend such sums of money on pictures and books which are, no doubt, all choice and eminently valuable in their way, but hardly equal in value to human life. Here is some material for reflection. — ' Universe.' The following statistics of London appear iv papers of the London City Mission : — " London covers, within the 15 miles radius of Charing Cross, nearly 700 miles. It numbers, within these boundaries, 4.000,000 inhabitants. It comprises 100,000 foreigners, from every quarter of the globe. It contains more Roman Catholics than Rome itself, more Jews thau the whole of Palestine, more Irish than Dublin, more Scotchmen than Edinburgh, more Welshmen than Cardiff, and more country -born persons than the counties of Devon, Warwickshire, and Durham combined. It has a birth in every five minutes, a death in it every eight minutes, and seven accidents every day in its 7,000 miles of streets. It has on an average twenty-eight miles of newstreets opened and 10,000 new houses built in it every year. It has 1,000 Bhips and 9,000 sailors in its port erery day. It has 117,000 habitual criminals on its police register increasing at an average of 30,000 per annum. It has as many beershops and gin palaces as would, if placed side by side, stretch from Charing Cross to Portsmouth, a distance of 73 miles. It has aa many paupers as would more than occupy every house in Brighton. It has an influence witfl^ all parts of the world represented by the yearly delivery in its postal districts of 238,000,000 letters." The eminent Scottish hißtoriographer,antiquary and genealogist, the Rev. Dr. Charles Rogers, gives a melancholy view of the family of the illustrious novelist, Sir Walter Scott, under the heading " the Scotts of Abbotsford." Sir Walter's eldest son and successor in the baronetcy, his son Charles, and his two daughters, Mrs. Lockhart and Anne Scott, all died young. Lockhart's sons and daughter, Mrs. Hope Scott, are gone ; but the great grand-daughter of the poet, Mary Monica Hope Scott, of Abbotsford, who married, in 1874, the Hon. J. Constable Maxwell, and who has a son named Walter, yet survives. L'homme propose et Dieu dispose." The ' Journal de Paris' contains the following curious news from Bale : — At the large silk spinning mill of Messrs. Bolger and Ringwald, at Niederschoenthal, near BAle, every night for some length of tiuie a certain number of silk bobbins have disappeared. The entrances were closely guarded in consequence, the workpeople searched, the police put on the watch night and day, but the pilf erings continued ; each, night more bobbins were carried off — in one night alone as many as 152. At last, when the number of bobbins missing reached to about 500, the abstractions ceas?d, and the mysterious manner of their disappearance was almost forgotten. Lately, however, a workmsin engaged in repairing the ceiling discovered hidden between the cross planks a great number of rats'

nests, very carefully arranged, and comfortably stuffed with the silk from the stolen bobbins. The novel nest-builders descended and remounted by means of a transmission pulley, and as bobbins are awkward to carry, and the journey difficult to perform, none of the rats could take more than one at a time, and they must have been busily employed when they carriedjoff 152. The news of the discovery of the mysterious thieves soon spread about the mill, and caused great delight and satisfaction to the workpeople, some of whom had naturally been suspected of the silk pilf erings. r Men armed with iron claws fight like wild beasts in Baroda, India, the King offering prizes and witnessing the brutish contests. They are first intoxicated with bhang, an infusion of hemp and opium, to inspire them with sufficient courage. Frenzied and singing they rush at each other, striking, wrestling, and using the iron ► claws until one or the other is wounded beyond fighting. Rousselet, in his "Travels in India," describes a contest in which one gladiator showed symptoms of fright and a desire to run away, and the other turned to the King to know whether he should relent. " Strike ! " the King shouted, and the head of the defeated fellow was soon torn and bleeding. Amongst the items inscribed in the Budget of the French Minister of Public Instruction and Worship is one for the payment of the salaries which the French bishops and clergy receive from the State. The Cardinal Archbishop of Paris is paid .£2,400 per annum ; the four Cardinal Archbishops of Bordeaux, Rouen, Cambrai, and Rennes, and the Archbishop of Algiers, £1,200 each; the twelve other Archbishops ,£BOO each; and the sixty-nine Bishops in France and Algeria, .£6OO each. The Vicar-General of Paris receives .£180: the Vicars-General of the eighteen metropolitan sees, .£l4O each; those of the three Algerian dioceses, .£144 each; and those of the 169 other dioceses and chapters, £1 00 each. The fifteen Canons of Paris are paid £69 each, which stipend is also given to the fourteen Canons in Algeria ; while the 680 other Canons in France receive but ,£64 each. Of the other members of the clergy, the principal priest of Notre Dame de Paris receives £96 per annum ; and the sixty-five other principal priests in France, .£64 each. The 3371 parish priests who hold their benefices for life receive salaries varying from £40 to .£SO. Altogether the State pays .£1,253,960 to 30,902 incumbents, £25,324 to 334 incumbents, in Algeria, and £161,021 to 9,279 curates (vicaires). The richest prebends in France are those of St. Denis, which are worth £400 each for Canons of the episcopal order, and £160 each for Canons of the second order. The prebends of St. Genevieve (Paris) are worth only £80 per annum.