SAN FRANCISCO MAIL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 205, 9 March 1877, Page 13

SAN FRANCISCO MAIL NEWS.

(From our Exchanges.) Most of our Irish readers know of the infamous character of the bad Beresfords, who were so long identified with the Established Church of Ireland. It will, perhaps, interest them to know that there was one of them— and he a Protestant Archbishop of Armagh — who was en exception to the family rule. An interesting note in the last number of the 'Irish Monthly,' edited by Father Russell, a Jesuit, says: — "If we were asked to name a member of the same family, "as a striking set-off against John Claudius, we would name his cousin, the late John George Beresford, Protestant Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. No one who had once seen him could ever forget his handsome face and truly noble appearance. He was a man of discerning mind and generous feeling, and showed these qualities in the way in which he ruled his see, and in his relations with his clergy. The large revenue he derived from the Church he employed chiefly in ita service. He contented himself with his private fortune, and died not rich. On his cathedral choir he spent £700 a year j the expenses incurred by the publication of a valuable antiquarian work were defrayed by him ; and he built, at a cost of Jtl l,ooo, the Campanile in the grand square of Trinity College. Our late venerated Primate, the Most Bey. Dr. Dixon, had the sincerest esteem for Archbishop Beresford ; and on one occasion, when speaking of him, he said: — 'He is a large-hearted, large-minded man, and each night in prayer I ask God to preserve his life, and.to prolong the term of his benevolence and charity.' " Mrs. Coulter, of Dnndalk, is about to imitate the example set by Mrs. Brennan, of Dromin, and has instituted ejectment proceedings against a number of tenants living on her property at Stump, a few miles from Dundalk. Some months ago a notice was served on each of these tenants, informing them that their landlady had thought fit to make a considerable increase in their rents. It was stated that the new rents had been fixed by a " competent valuator." If the tenants refused to comply with the new arrangements they were not left in any doubt as to the consequences that would follow their refusal ; for, on the back of the notice informing them of the proposed increase in their rents, was another notice " to give up quiet and peaceable possession of their holdings" the Ist Nov. The tenants declined to pay the increased rent on the ground that their holdings were not worth the sum demanded. They did not object to a re-valuation of their farms, and were prepared to pay the full value of their holdings. They made a proposal to Mrs. Coulter's agent, to have the value of their land ascertained by competent and impartial valuators, and expressed their willingness to abide by the result of such valuation. Mrs Coulter and her agent have appealed to the law to enable her to recover an amount of rent which the tenants allege is unjustifiable, or else subject them to the dreadful penalty of eviction from house and home,. The ejectment processes will be heard at the January quarter sessions in Dundalk, and will, we understand, be defended. On the 4th December, at Genoa, was discovered a depot of Orsini bombs, firearms, swords, and other weapons. At about sis o'clock on the morning of the fifth a loud explosion was heard, and immediately afterwards two smaller detonations in a lane called " Del Fico," attracted the notice of the inhabitants, and spread alarm throughout the neighborhood. The explosions occurred in a large shop which was ostensibly a second-hand goods store, and which was set on fire by the explosion. The fire brigade, and the soldiers from the neighboring barrack of St. Ambrogio, were at once upon the spot, accompanied by the King's Procurator-General, the Questor, and the Commander of the Division. The flames were soon subdued. On proceeding to ascertain the cause of the explosion, it was discovered that the shop, which is a very large one, instead of being a second-hand clothes store, was in reality a depot and manufactory of Orsini bombs and guns, swords and daggers. The explosion was the result of attempts to charge the bombs. The pretended shopkeeper was badly burnt, but was able to escape to the house where he slept, and where he was soon after arrested in bed. An immense quantity of weapons and munitions of war, including about four hundred Orsini bombs, were found in this magazine, and were seized by the authorities. The place where this explosion occurred is one of the most thickly inhabited quarters of Genoa. It is very remarkable that the police were ignorant of such an extensive depot of destructive weapons. The secret societies and revolutionists seem to be active at present in Italy. The great love of the people for the late Duchess d'Aosta is , being manifested in the numerous funeral services being held for y Jkm repose of her soul all over the country. Her example as a wife and Christian mother in these days of immorality and infidelity, her unostentatious piety and her steady and consistent refusal to countenance by any act of hers the sacrilegious proceedings of the family into which her destiny had brought her, all tended to endear her to the true Italian people. The Benedictine monks of Monte Cassinoare engaged in printing a description of the manuscripts contained in their library, with fac-similes of some of the documents, and reproduction iv chromo-litbograph of the remarkable illuminations. This work is entitled " Bibliotheca Cassinensis." Two volumes have been already printed, with a preface by the learned Abbot Luigi Tosti. A Boman correspondent of a New York paper — we think it was the large-minded person who rehashes the Italian liberal papers for the New York ' Times' — has indulged in an original but not overwhelming sarcasm concerning the deceased Cardinal's legacies to the institutions in Borne and Jerusalem. What these really meant is explained by M. Veuillot in the following paragraph : — " In the Pontifical State, in order that a testament shall be pronounced valid, it must contain a minimum legacy of five francs in favor of the Hospice of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Places at

Jerusalem, or else the testator, questioned by a notary, shall have ieclared his unwillingness to make such bequests. Such was the admirable forethought of legislation in almost the whole of Christian Europe, and more particularly in Italy. At Turin a legacy was required for the Hospice of Ste. Maurice and Lazarus, or else bhe testator must distinctly refuse under a penalty of invalidating the will; the same conditions existed at Genoa for the Hospice of Ponnatione. At Rome the obligation was absolute ; and this accounted for the wealth of those institutions without any charge on the budget. The poor were partially provided for by the dead ; the law did not permit that a testator should forget the poor either at the tomb of Jesus Christ or that of St. Peter. It contained many of those ' barbarities' the last traces of which are being attempted to be removed. But Cardinal Antonelli, under many aspects, was still a man of the Middle Ages, and, dying at the Vatican, he has conformed to the old traditions." Monday, January 1; was " a great day" for Dublin. The civic year was inaugurated by a Catholic lord mayor, a Catholic high sheriff, and a Catholic sub-sheriff. The new Lord Mayor of Dublin (Alderman Tarpey) has been long known in that city as the active friend of every good work. His very last act before assuming hia present dignity was to preside at a public meeting convened for the purpose of paying a well-deserved compliment to the Bey. Michael Barry, of St. Andrew's, Dublin, who has been promoted to a parish after twenty-seven years' labor aa a curate. The new Lord Mayor of Dublin just comes in good time to make up for the masonic tendencies of his predecessor, who (though in many respects a worthy man) too often forgot that he was the ruler of a city the great majority of whose inhabitants are Catholics. Paul Feval, the great Breton novelist whose conversion was announced some time ago, wishing that his writings should be conformable to the principles of the Catholic Church, is nowengaged in the preparation of an expurgated edition of all hi 3 works. Not wishing to depend entirely on his own judgment in this matter, he has asked and received the' assistance of a wellknown Catholic author of several romances which might safely be put into the hands of any person. In submitting his works to this religious censure, the author, to his great credit be it said, has given his generous assistant only one advice, which is a very characteristic one : " Don't spare them," be severe, as severe as you can." Paul Feval's example is one that ought to be imitated; but, like all good examples, we fear that it will nob be imitated as widely as it needs to be. Notwithstanding the great number of Christian Brothers there are in France, the supply is far from being equal to the demand. To meet this necessity there has been created, under the patronage of the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, the (Euore dv Venerable de la Salle. In the committee of administration and the council of this work are some of the most distinguished inhabitants of the French capital. Branches have been established with wonderful success in most of the dioceses of France, and ib has even taken root in other countries. Encouraged by the bishops, it has, under the name of " little noviciates," preparatory schools iv which boys who have a taste for teaching and for religious life complete their primary education and are prepared with particular cure to enter the great noviciate, which is solely for the training of religious teachers. The famous university of Louvain has this year nearly 1,500 students attending its courses. The State University (Ghent), has something more than one-third the number, and this notwithstanding its numerous benefits, purses, schol irslups and other advantages. It is a consoling fact that while the number of students of theology in the various Protestant colleges and universities of Europe has so decreased that it is not now one half of what it was five years ago, the number of Catholic students of theology is continually increasing, not in one country alone, but all over the faca of the globe. - " French criminal statistics show that the proportion of illiterates among criminals is steadily decreasing." But the number of criminals is not decreasing. It is your educated man, now, who i 3 your greatest and most dangerous rascal — that is, your man who has been educated in his head only and not in his heart, and who has been taught the false science which eliminates God and His laws from the world. This is the sort of education which has been given to many Frenchmen during the past few years, and it is from them that the literate criminals come. More than 2,000 workmen are engaged day and night in the Champ de Mars and Trocadero preparing for the Paris Exhibition of 1878. On Monday, November 29, was founded at Cros3haven, on the southern shore of Cork Harbor, a new house of what may be truly described as the great institute of Nuns of the Order of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin. This Order is now fulfilling a world-wide mission, the leading purpose of which is the education of the children of the poor, and in any locality where they have been enabled to prosecute this important work, but especially in Cork, the cradle of the institute, it must be superfluous to say with what holy zeal and signal success that work is accomplished. According to statistics recently published, there are in Spain 22,711 public schools of every grade 16,888 are for males, and 6,676 are for females. 5,224 more schools are needed to complete the number required by law. The number of primary schools is 5,406, with an attendance of 1,200,720 pupils. There were 209,736 pupils attending private schools. In the public schools there are 13,508 teachers, male and female, and in the private schools 4,080. The St. Gothard tunnel, the greatest engineering work of its kind in the world, is being steadily pressed towards completion. Work is progressing upon it from both ends through the mountains — from Groschenen toward Italy, and men are employed, divided into gangs, which labor day and night. The work has now been four yearsin progress, and it is thought four years more will be *c quired to complete the stupendous undertaking. The tunnel

will be ten miles long. Dynamite is used for the purpose of blast* ing, and all the drills are the ordinary chilled steel, the diamond drill being unemployed. The usual machine for driving the drills is employed, and -works entirely by means of compressed air, which is brought from the reservoir by means of a large iron pipe. The reservoirs are supplied by a number of condensing engines, turned by water, for which purpose a mountain stream, is, some way above the mouth of the tunnel, diverted into a sluice-way. A pressure of ten or twelve atmospheres is always maintained. The St. Gothard tunnel will be the shortest route from England to Italy, and will, doubtless, be part of the direct route from India to England. There will be a heavy grade on the lines before entering the tunnel, but engineers have proved that it will not impede travel. The success of the tunnel is already so admitted a fact that a competitive route has been arranged in France, to run through the Rhone Valley and the Simplon Pass to Italy. The ' Germania' of Berlin gives the official statistics of desertions in the Prussian army. From these we learn that in 1874 there were 16,539 desertions and 17,112 attempts at desertion. In the navy the number of deserters was 714, and those who unsuccessfully tried to follow their example amounted to 783. The '* bread-basket law," by which the stipends of all Catholic priests are stopped — save of those who prevaricate, and give Mammon the preference to God — has had this one beneficial effect of drawing out the innate energies of the Catholic people, and rendering the clergy practically independent of the powers that be in the State. A splendid example of this kind was given quite recently at Cologne. The vicar-general of the archdiocese, Mgr. Bandri, was turned out of his official residence for refusing to give in his adhesion to the " May Laws." Thereupon a lady of his congregation placed a, house at his free disposal, which had until then been let for J6240 per annum — a very high rent for Germany — adding that if he could find a more convenient residence near the cathedral she would pay the rent for him up to the amount named. This is genuine practical Christianity, which beats all the languid twaddle of Exeter Hall to atoms. From the ' Toice of Maria Laach/ an official organ of the Society of Jems, we learn that that order has scattered all over the world, and numbers 9,290. According to the ' Tablettes Statistiques/ the Freemasons have 796,250 members— 2lo,B9l in Europe, and 585,269 in America. The proportion of Jesuits to Freemasons is then as Ito 86, but, notwitstanding their immense numerical superiority, the Freemasons fear the Jesuits. The latter are clothed with the armour of truth, while over the former is thrown but the thin web of falsehood. They have a strange way in Prussia of making prisoners pay foi their own keep. Last 3 ear the Coadjutor-bishop of Posen, Mgr. Cybicbowski, was kept in duress for nine months for having done what the Church wanted him to do, and which did not meet with favoui in the eyes of Bismarck. Scarcely had he got out of prison when a demand note was presented to him for the amount of J67 9s. 2jd. foi " cost of imprisonment " (Haftkosten.) To this the prelate made no objection on principle, but having had his salary stopped by the Prussian Government, he declared he could not afford the luxury o; nine months' prison out of his private means. The obtuse provincial government were about to distrain Mgr. Cybichow ski's property when an anonymous benefactor paid the amount into the Gnesen Court and the bailiffs were sent.about their business, cr rather away froir their business. When our Protestant brethren of the better class obtain ar insight into the real work of the Catholic Church, their admiration foi it is as unbounded as it is just. Occasionally we find a pebble amonf the debris of our anti-Catholic exchanges which leads us to hope thai all the writers for them are not so malevolent as misinformed. As ar example, here is an appreciation of the work of the Holy Childhood from a Chicago Presbyterian, the * Interior ' : " Bishop Kyai (Catholic), of Buffalo, among other charities, commends the " Society of the Holy Infancy" — a little folks society for the relief of abandonee children. We think this idea a very beautiful one, in every view The little ones are reminded that Jems was once a child like them selves, and they are taught to give to other children for His sake "For Jesus' Bake" is made the mainspring of their benevolence That is sweet and impressive training which will go with them througl Seven million pounds sterling spent annually in London upoi " charity." So says a gentleman who has set himself up as ai authority on such matters, namely, Lord Claud Hamilton, th< Conservative M.P. for Lynn Kegis. And yet we hear continually of deaths from destitution. Is it possible that those who complaii of the little good that is done with such enormous funds canno see the cause of what they so justly condemn ? There was a tim< in England — long before the Reformation and the hundreds oi H^ems" that have sprung therefrom — when charity was dispensed a matter of religion and love by the Catholic religious house: which then overspread the land. Well may the poor of England long for a return of that time. The directors of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society have had to pay a fine of forty shillings (copyright fees) for allowing Mdlle Zare Thalberg to sing " I'm alone " in Benedict's " Lilly of Killar ney" at one of their concerts. A curious circumstance connected with this matter is the fact that Sir Julius Benedict himself was the conductor at the concert, and thus it appears that a compose] may not perform or assist in the performance of his own musi< with impunity. The population of China is 405 millions, with 28i millions ol outlying people. Hong Kong Beems to have decreased by upwards of 2,000 since last year, the number now given being 121,985 Japan is set down at 33,299,014. Lord Beacon afield has completed his 716t year 4 having beer born on December 21, 1805 ; and Mr. Gladstone his 67th year, his birthday being December 29, 1809. There is in Saa Francisco au organisation of atheists, com-

munists, agrarians, and female suffragists who devote several hours of the first day of the week to miscellaneous gabble. On December 10, after two young women had played on a piano " Is my darling true to me ?" there was a debate on the topic, " Is the Republic a failure?" One lunatic remarked that a bishop, who produced nothing, got $4,000 a year — as much as eight working-men could earn. " I have suffered as much as anybody," he exclaimed ; " I have had starvation aud want staring me in the face, but the next time I get in that fix all I have got to say is, 'Look out/ " Another lunatic said that all men were born honest except those with crooked intellects. Another lunatic insisted that all men were born liars and scoundrels, and every man would steal were he not afraid that his neighbors would find it out. Another lunatic said that Rome rose and fell; a blade of grass rises and falls; stocks rise and fall; man rises and falls; everything rises and falls — the American. Republic likewise. According to the ' Germania/ Abdul Eerim, the Turkish Coni-mander-in-Chlef, who is stated to have taken a leading part in instigating the "Bulgarian atrocities," is a Prussian. He was formerly a captain in the Prussian army, and a relation of his is now a member of the German Parliament. Lord Waveney has issued a pamphlet in support of Lord Stratford's proposal that Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria should be governed by a European Commission. He suggests that Russia, Austria, Germany and Italy should be invited to furnish the principal corps of occupation, and that to England should be entrusted the guardianship of the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles. The following is an illustration of the developement of English spelling in the Punjab. The ' Punjab Advertiser ' is assured that it is a verbatim copy of a letter recently received by a schoolmaster in the north from a householder in his locality : — " Cur, ass, you are a man of no legs and I wish to inter my sun in your skulL" The obscurity and seeming offensiveness of this address disappear on translation. What was intended to be written was — " Sir. as you are a man of knowledge, I wish to enter my son at your school." — ' Hindoo Patriot/ Congress passed in July last a joint resolution requesting the President to ask the pardon of Edward O. M. Condon, now imprisoned in Great Britain on a life sentence for complicity in an attempt to release Fenian prisoners. The resolution was transmitted through Sec. Fish, and Minister Pierrepont to Lord Derby, who laid it before the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and was told that " Her Majesty's Government were not prepared to advise Her Majesty to extend her clemency to the Fenian prisoners." With the exception of two persons, all the Catholics of St. Mark's Church, in Wilmington, N.C., numbering about 100 souls, are recent converts to the faith. They have a good Catholic school, and the non-Catholics of the vicinity come in large numbers to attend the monthly services in the church. The poet Algernon Charles Swinburne is rather severe on the ferocity of Thomas Carlyle. Swinburne believes in the Turks, and in a pamphlet about them thus berates Carlyle, who believes in the Russians : — " Cruelty in Ireland, cruelty in Jamaica, cruelty in the plantation, cruelty in the jail — each of these in turn has deservedly incurred the indelible condemnation of his praise." There is now staying on a visit to Captain Kerrich, at Geldeston, an old lady who was actually present at and took a passive part in the battle of Waterloo. Madame Van Cutsem, now the farmer of Hougoumout, was at that time the gardener's daughter at the Chateau of Hougoumont, and aged five years. Her father, the gardener, stuck to his post, retaining his little daughter as company. The chateau itself was occupied by the British Guards, and was throughout the whole of the memorable 18th of June, 1815, the grand and principal object of attack. Madame has a very vivid recollection o£ the kindness of our soldiers, who treated her as a pet, and kept throw* ing her bits of biscuit out of their haversacks wherewith to amuse her. At last the chateau was shelled in the afternoon and set fire to by Jerome Bonaparte. Madame was then conducted by a sergeant of tha i Guards to a back gate, and her retreat secured into the forest of Soignies. Madame is a widow, of course advanced in yeais, but hale and hearty, and now visiting England for the first time in her life. — ' Norwich -Argus/ Of the Jesuits who have been exiled from Germany for the last four years, we find some account in a late issue of our contemporary the c Germania/ Prior to 1872, the German province of the Order had about 150 members ; and since their banishment these have spread over all parts of the globe. About twenty of them are now living in the United States, whilst in Central and South America five of them hare settled. The vast majority of the German Jesuits, however, have selected British India for the field of their exertions. There are a hundred of them in the Peninsula, and the Catholics of the whole presidency of Bombay are entrusted to their spiritual leadership. The school established by the German Jesuits at Bombay musters no less than 600 scholars, most of them heathens, and has been incorporated with the university of that city. In this way they go, putting Bismarck to shame. "Nearly every day," says the ' New York Herald/ "the papers have to chronicle the mysterious disappearance of some stranger in the city, either male or female, and though the police are applied to and tha city is searched from end to end, often no traces or tidings can be found of the missing persons. Sometimes it is a merchant from some far off city, sometimes a young girl, strange to the ways of New York life and ofttimes a poor distracted wife in search of a husband who has deserted her and left her to subsist on the cold charity of the world. It is odd that the police authorities so often fau to obtain any clue to these mysterious disappearances, when tha system of obtaining information is claimed to be bo perfeot/' After having admirably performed the functions of the " devil's attorney-general " in the Marpingen affair, the Prussian authorities hare ignonjniouely abandoned all their positions. Tie frjeitf tfw<

rcuter and Schneider, pastors of Marpingen and Alsweilor, were received after "liberation, with triumphant ovation by fcheir respective flocks. The four men who saw the apparition, and who were looted up because they said 60, returned to their homes on the 17th of November, although they never refracted a single one of their asssertions ; and as a crowning triumph, the children have been set at liberty and restored to their parents. The Landgericht of Saarebruck quashed the judgment which ordered the three little ones to be shut up in a Protestant reformatory, but the Procurator- General appealed against the decision of this tribunal to the Superior Court of Justice of Berlin, which has confirmed the sentence of the Landgericht. The little ones left their prison on the 12th of December. The authorities have also been forced to acknowledge that the children never made any confession of fraud, but have all persisted in repeating their first assertions under threats which were calculated to influence much older persons. It is generally believed that this result was brought about through fear that the party of the Centre would take hold of it and expose the motires which actuated the authorities in the matter. The words of the Landgericht are that " there was no deceit practised nor any oth^r punishable offence committed in the matter." The 'Saarebruck Gazette* which will soon have to defend itself in court for slandering the pastor of Marpingen, says that multitudes flock daily to the site of the apparitions. The faithful arrive by thousands in the little village. This L'beral journal, which was wont to treat the affair with so much ridicule, is compelled to acknowledge that there is not the least disorder committed in. consequence.