GERMAN EVENTS.
Since the beginning of the present persecution in Prussia, the German i atholics have every year become more united, and added new strength to the noble, though passive resistance which they offer to an infidel and tyrannical Government in its endeavors to rob them of their faith. The recent elections have furnished an irrefutable proof of this happy result of the Kultur-Kampf. Our enemies deplore it ; to us it is a subject of sincere congratulation, and a hope and a pledge for the ultimate victory of the Catholic cause in Germany. As Catholics form only a small fraction of the Prussian population, they cannot expect ever to command a majority in Parliament, but what the new elections have unmistakeably shown, is a considerable increase in the number of Catholic votes throughout the kingdom, and consequently of power also, ■with which, quiet and enduring though it be at present, the Government will one day have to reckon either in Parliament or out of it. In the two provinces of Westphalia and Rhenish Prussia all proposed Catholic members who were expected to pass have been returned j if, in a few towns like Crefeld, Diisseldorf, and Neuwied, more votes ought to have been given to the Catholic candidates than was actually done, it was not owing to the Catholic voters, but to the machinations of the Government that had previously split up the Catholic voting districts, and amalgamated the dismembered parts with Protestant districts. By this dishonorable roceeding, imitated from the Bavarian so-called Government Election Geometry, most Catholic votes lost their value. And thus it came to pass that although the number of Catholic voters in ■creased 50 per cent, in the districts in question, not less than eight seats of the Centre party were lost ; two in Diisseldorf, two in Neuwied, two in Beuthen, one in Fiaustadt, one in Conitz. On the other hand seven new seats were gained, viz , two in Hohenzollern, three in Glatz, and two in Eatibor, to which must be added an eighth, that of a Hanoverian Protestant, who will also join the Centre ; so that in point of numerical strength the Catholic party will be exactly what it was last year. Had not the Government played a double game, our party would have been strengthened in the Landtag by at least six, if not eight, new members.
In a village school of Silesia the new school inspector having seen a large cross hanging on the principal wall of the schoolroom, whilst the Emperor's picture occupied a let-s favored place, angrily began the following conver.-ation with the schoolmaster: — Inspector. "Who gives you your bread ? " Maßter. " Well, I suppose the ' commune ' through the Government." "Indeed! hare you no better answer? " — and, pointing to the Kmperor's pictuie, he added: "Here is he who gives us all our bread. And, therefore, you will at once remove his Majesty's likeness to the large wall, and the Cross to the other" Soon aftoi the inspector's visit came the superior, tbe school counsellor " What ! " says he to the bewildered schoolmaster, " who told you to hang the Cross on that wall ! "—"" — " The school inspector." " Why ? " " Because that gentleman thought we all received our bread from his Majesty." "Oh! indeed!" answered the counsellor with indignation ; "and is it not God in heaven who feeds us all ? Replace the pictures where they hung formerly, and if anybody should *sk you why, just say that I, the school counsellor, ordered it, and that I will have it so.
The well known martyr priest, Rev. Father Classen, of Treveß, who is still in gaol, has been summoned by the Ober-President to Miign hi* functions as parish priest. The arrrst of the editor of the ' Reichsglocke,' Mr. Talchau, was not ejected for his revelations abeut Bismarck's shares in a 'commercial undertaking of — to use a lenient expression— doubtful respectability but for other offences against Bismarck's honor. Nothing undaunted, the paper continues its attacks on the German Chancellor as "griinder," i.e., founder of trade companies, and proves its accusations by the quotations of facts. Everybody it amazed in Berlin that Bis-
marck has not yet given orders to arraign the paper for calumny, and people begin to think that the revelations of the ' Eeiohsglocke * must be true. Military circ'os especially have become si locked by the papers assertion that Bismarck received one million from Messrs Rothschild and Beichrldder when the Central Rural Credit Society was founded. In case Prince Bismarck should not soon invoke the arm of justice for the protection of his fair reputation, certain superior officers will bring the matter before a court of honor.— 'Livernool Catholic Times.'
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New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 206, 16 March 1877, Page 9
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772GERMAN EVENTS. New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 206, 16 March 1877, Page 9
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