GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 188, 3 November 1876, Page 9

GENERAL NEWS.

w The persecution of the Church in Armenia by the Turkish Government in favor of the schismatics has ended for the moment, and in a wonderful manner. Mgr. Hassoun, the Catholic Patriarch, whilst at Monte Casino, in Tuscany, received a letter from a friend at Constantinople, informing him of a conversation he had just had with the banker Miranibey, one of the chief men amonothe Armenian schismatics. The latter, after asking Mgr. Hassoun'l friend if he had confidence in him, requested that gentleman to write in his name to the Patriarch, and request him to return immediately to Constantinople. " Let Mgr. Hassoun deign to reckon on me," he said. " I take the entire responsibility. I require only that no one shall know of his departure, and there be no imposing ovation at his arrival." After consultation with the Holy Father and the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda, Mgr. Hassoun set out for Vienna, whence he proceeded by "the Danube to Constantinople. He arrived there on the evening of Thursday, July 6, to the immense joy of the Artniniau Catholics. The Turkish Government, informed of his arrival, offered no opposition ; and more, the Foreign Minister, Saf ret Pasha, the personal enemy of the Patriarch, told the Count de Bourgogne, the French Ambassador, that the Ottoman Government was glad to oblige France by leaving Mgr. Hassoun full liberty to retake possession^ his patriarchal see. I gave you not many weeks ago (says the London correspondent of the 'Manchester Guardian') some congent reasons for believing that the financial position of Russia would greatly tend to prevent her from undertaking any foreign war. The necessity which I mentioned of her being compelled to reserve out of her revenue a very large proportion of her specie for the payment of those debentures and dividends due to foreign countries which must eventually be redeemed in cash, and the consequent resort to paper money — and that at an enforced depreciation — for the pay of her army and a large portion of her civil employes, has since been commented upon in other journals than your own. A significant confirmation of the deplorable state of Russian finance comes to me from a well-informed quarter. If what lam told be true, the Russian Government applied not many months ago to a distinguished financial firm for the negotiation of a forthcoming loan. The financial position of Russia being then unsuspected, the capitalists applied to accepted the undertaking, and on the strength of it an advance to the amount of more than a million was requested and granted j but it seems that on subsequent inquiry and from "information received" the financial firm in question now decline to proceed any further with the loan, and are content to incur the loss of their advance rather than risk one which might prove to be of far more serious magnitude. In 1869, when General Grant came into office, he found 54,207 civil employees on the pay rolls. In 1871 that number, under his administration, was increased to 75,605. In 1873 he still further increased the pay roll to 86,660. And in 1875 he ran it up to the enormous figure of 94,119.

One of the French Transatlantic Company's! mail steamers, which arrived at Plymouth yesterday, brings news of a wholesale murder of unusual ferocity at New York. °Three Germans, named Thielhoun, living independent of business, were incensed against TW^l- f lV6^ e ' iden< ;eagainst them on a petty charge. The brothers threatened the witnesses, and, in conseqence, were ordered to be arrested. The police proceeded to their lodgings, when a terrific fight took place. One policeman was shot dead and another wounded. The three men then mshed from the house, firing -with revolvers at every one they met. Several persons, including two ladies, were slightly wounded, or had narrow escapes. The men rushed to an office where two of the former witnesses against them were employed, and shot them both dead. They were pursued by an armed crowd, at whom they repeatedly fired, wounding some. At length they were chased to a spot at which they must either face the crowd or swim the river They chose the latter, after a fight with knives with the foremost of the crowd, but when in the water they were pelted with stones and sunk. Six lives -were lost, and other sufferers are in a dangerous state. ° The • Osservatore Romano' regards the present war as a conflict between Islam and Eussia,and contrasts the tolerance of the •lurks towards Catholicism with the intolerance of the Russian Government in Poland. This is inexplicable. We can understand a Catholic writer registering no vows for the success of the arms of a schismatical power, seeking by brute force to propagate its °toss Erastiamsm over the trampled body of the Church. No doubt a powerful and aggressive heresy is a greater obstacle to the triumph of the faith than any avowedly infidel power can be, however hostile or however strong. But certainly the Turks do not recommend themselves to our sympathies on any account of " tolerance " lor, not to mention that in proportion as a Mohammedan is true to his creed must he be intolerant even to the extermination of Christians, the behaviour of the Turkish Government in the matter of the Armenian |schism has been as persecuting as that of Russia towards Poland, without the pretext of national unity winch the latter may put forth as an excuse. In fact, in the support given to the schismatic patriarch Kupelian, and the sending into exile of Mgr. Hassoun, the Catholic patriarch, in the trans°ierence of the Catholic churches to schismatic priests, the Mohammedan power has rivalled the Protestant one in its persecution of the Church, to the advantage of the contemptible sect of "Old Catholics. ' In truth, we should be glad to be informed what S i U -? le sign there is, throughout the whole treatment by the Porte of its Christian subjects, of the superior tolerance of the Church « * *r r w ' the ' Osser ™tore ' ascribes to it. It is true that Mgr. Hassoun has just been restored to his patriarchal see - but under -what pressure it is easy to see. — ' N.Y. Tablet.' * Reports of a very unpleasant nature have readied us from Philadelphia with reference to the corruption prevailing among the correspondents sent to the Exhibition by certain newspapers. Several of our contemporaries have established permanent offices on the grounds and their representatives, it is alleged, carry on quite a thriving business by extorting money from the exhibitors in return for puffs given them m the columns of the papers. Many of the exhibitors, who are simple-minded enough to think that such puffs are of value to them, pay the bribes and keep their mouths shut. Those, on the other hand, who have common-sense enough to refuse to en»a«e in such transactions are afraid of the pi ess, and consequently are reluctant to give publicity to the proposals made to them by the representatives of certain journals- The exposure of such proposals, unless they are made m presence of witnesses or in writing— which the emissaries of venal journalism are caieful to avoid— might be easily made the occasion of legal proceedings, from which the exhibitors are naturally anxious to keep aloof. — ' Sun.' A fresco, stated to be an important and genuine work by Perugmo, the master of Raphael, has been discovered in the cathedral of Corneto. The Italian Government has directed Sio-nor Bonpiom, the painter and expert, to make a report. ° Verdi's ". Aida" has at length been brought out at the Teatro Mabbran an Venice, the chief characters being assigned to their late representatives in Paris. Tho attraction of this last opera by Italy s foremost living composer was hardly so great as was anticipated. Intelligence was published ia London to the effect that the first Chinese railway for the conveyance of passengers was opened on the 30th of June last at Shanghai. The line, it is true is not of great length. It will extend only from Shanghai to Woosun* a distance of about forty miles ; and the portion completed <?o'es nearly half way, to a place called Kangwan. A hundred and fifty invited guescs belonging to the foieign community participated in the "inauguration" of the line; but on Saturday, the Ist inst the natives were allowed to travel free— a privilege of which they appear to have availed themselves con amove; since it is stated that six trains started in the comse of the day, and that they were" all crowded with passengers. Advices down to the sth of July mention that the cash receipts on the Monday and Tuesday succeeding a free day were highly satisfactory. Why John Chinaman should have been deemed entitled to a gratuitous pass for himself his wife and olive-branches on Saturday may at first blush seem difficult of comprehension ; but the concession was probably made with a view of conciliating the native population in the presence of that which promises to prove the most radical innovation ever introduced into the social, and perhaps into the political economy of the Chinese empire. Our surmise is strengthened by a si<mifi <?*nt remark in one of the telegrams from Shanghai: "It is thoVht that the railway will not be interfered with." Imperfectly civilised races are, as we all know, apt to "interfere" with modern improve ments. — ' London Daily Telegraph,' July 11. The exhibition of the Prince's Indian presents is so popular that upwards of JE3OO in silver and .£IOO in copper is weekly " taken at the doors."