THE TABLET
A IV eek ly Nezvspaper a n d Review .
D u m VOBIS G R A TU LAM U R , AN IM O S ETIAM ADDIMUS U T IN INCCEPTIS V E STR IS CONSTAN TER M AN EATIS.
From the Brief oj H is Holiness to T he T ablet, June 4 > 1S70.
Vol. 41. No. 1727. L ondon, May 17, 1873-
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[R e g is tered a t t h e G e n e r a l P o st O f f ic e a s a N ew s p a p e r .
Page
■ Ch r o n i c l e o f t h e W e e k : Birth
day o f the Holy Father.— Representation o f Minorities. — Local Boundaries.— Lord Grey on the Dublin University Bill. — The Zanzibar Mission.— The Ashantee Difficulty. - The Callan Case.— Mr. Bright and Republics.— “ Confession” and the “ Church o f England.”— The French Elections and their Effect.— French Ministerial Crisis.— The Spanish Elections, &c. — Battle of Puente de Eraul.— Riot at Rome.— Mr. Vansittart’s Case. — The Church in Switzer
land.— The Prussian Ecclesiastical Laws.— The Khanates of Central A s i a .............................................617
CONTENTS
L ea d e r s :
Page
Conclusions from the Callan Case . 621 The Persecution in Switzerland . 622 The “ Old-Catholic” Bishop . . 622 Italian Justice . . . . 624 O ur P r o t e s t a n t Con tem po r a r ie s :
Csesarism and Journalism.— Caesar on the Bench.— The Irish Synod. — The English Convocation . 625 R e v ie w s :
The Life of S. Francis de Sales . 626 Mary Magnifying,God . . . 627 “ The Month” .... 628 S h ort N o t ic e s : The Threshold
Questions Historiques.— La Civiltà C a t t o l i c a ....................................628 C orrespondence :
Pa*e
Protestant Orders.— “ In his Place in Parliament” .... 629 Catholic Army Chaplains in India. 629 The 16th of June—Pray for our
Poor Rome Shall a Kind Offer be Refused ? The Bedford Mission Worth more than a Thought P a r l ia m e n t a r y S ummary . R ome :
63o 63o . O3O • b3° . 630
Letter from our own Correspondent 633 The Outrage near the Gesii . . 634
of the Catholic Church.— Art Guide to Painting in Italy.— Revue des
D io c e sa n N ew s :
Westminster .
• 6.35
D io cesan N ews (continued) :
Page
S o u t h w a r k .......................................633 Northampton .... 635 Salford .......................................635 Scotland— Western District . . 633 I r e lan d :
Letter from our Dublin Corre
spondent .......................................636 The Rev. R. O’Keeffe's Action against Cardinal Cullen . . 636 F oreign N ews :
France
638
Russia ..... 639 M em o r a n d a :
Religious Literary G en e r a l N ews
• ®39 . 640 . 64O
CHRONICLE OF THE W E E K .
THE HOLY FATHER. T
BIRTHDAY OF
HE HOLY FATH ER completed on
Tuesday his eighty-first, or as some believe his eighty-second year— the exact year of his birth being a matter o f some doubt, in consequence of the destruction of the Sinigaglia registers in the calamitous period of the French Revolution and invasion of Italy. His Holiness has been giving audiences as usual in spite of bis recent rheumatic attack; but the telegrams state that he did not receive the deputations which came to congratulate him on his birthday in consequence of a fresh attack of indisposition. This indisposition was made the most of by the Liberal press, as its practice is, and telegrams dated Tuesday represented the Pope as having had a serious fainting fit and being altogether in a very critical condition. The next day, however, the telegram was in a different key ; the Holy Father was better, and had heard Mass as usual. We believe the truth to be that he had caught a cold, and having just recovered from an attack of lumbago, was advised by his physicians to confine himself for a day or two to his bedroom. At eighty-one years of age, every ailment of course requires care, and justifies a certain anxiety; and the prayers of the whole Catholic world are being constantly offered that their Chief Pastor and Father may be spared to see at least the dawn of a better ■ time— of peace for the Church and of triumph for the cause •of religion.
.REPRESENTA
TION OF .MINORITIES.
The increased rapidity in the development of public opinion in this country is a very remarkable feature of the present day. It took thirty or forty years to convert the country to the ballot; but the Times is already admitting the principle of the representation of minorities, which it combatted so 'fiercely only six years ago when three-cornered constituencies were invented. We do not complain of the conversion — far from it— for we have always advocated the principle as the only one on which Catholics have a chance of getting represented in England— we simply note the fact. The motion of Sir C. Dilke for a redistribution of the constituencies gave occasion to the very just criticism that an equalization of the numbers of each group of electors, without any further change of system, would make the injustice greater than it is at present, and to the further admission that the principle of the cumulative vote is gaining ground in public opinion. This article has elicited in its turn a letter from Lord Grey, acknowledging the fact, and pointing out that while the justice of the principle is becoming every day more generally recognized, “ the best mode of applying it is very far “ from being yet ascertained.” He suggests, therefore, a
N e w S e r i e s . Y o l , IX . No. 236.
Royal Commission, as the time is singularly favourable for such an enquiry, in consequence of the absence of any agitation on the subject; and he recalled, as a warning, the neglect to institute an enquiry into the representation during the peaceful years which preceded the last Reform Bills, in consequence of which neglect a “ crude and ill“ considered” measure was introduced in 1866, to be defeated and followed by “ the still worse measure of 1867.” A Select Committee of the House could not report this year, and the Select Committees are now so numerous that another could scarcely be formed, and for these reasons the Times, which would have preferred a Select Committee, backs up Lord Grey vigorously in his demand for a Royal Commission, endorsing his argument from the fact that Sir Roundell Palmer and Sir H. Storks had to go to family boroughs in order to get into Parliament. The Representation of Minorities has made its first most important step in advance.
Mr. Stansfeld’s motion for a select commitlocal nrittee on Local Boundaries, which was to have come oft on 1 hursday week, was postponed to Monday and furnished the President of the Local Government Board with an opportunity of communicating some curious information respecting the existing divisions of parishes. One parish consists of six acres, one house, and a population of nine; another of one acre, three houses, and a population of three— one to each house— and the population of another consists of an old woman, a pig, and a donkey. Whether they inhabit more than one house Mr. Stansfeld did not say. Mr. W. H. Smith made an attempt to bring the case of the Metropolis within the sphere of the Committee s labours, but this was resisted on the ground that the enquiry would be sufficiently long without the addition of a population of three millions to its subject-matter. That there will be plenty for the Committee to do is apparent from the anomalies in the way of conflicting areas and subdivisions, instances of which were quoted on all sides; but Mr. Stansfeld by his gestures and Mr. Hibbert speaking for him repudiated energetically Colonel Barttelot’s imputation that the job cut out for the Committee was an indication that the Government meant to shelve the question of Local Taxation for the present.
LORD GREY
ON THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY
BILL.
The debate in the Lords on Mr. Fawcett’s Bill was chiefly remarkable for the hard truths told by Lord Grey. Lord Cairns, as Chancellor of the Dublin University, had introduced the Bill in a cold and formal manner as a necessary and disagreeable corollary to legislation o f which he heartily disapproved ; and Lord Denbigh, as representing the Catholics, had declared that, as he could neither vote for the retention of tests, which were bad in themselves, nor give any countenance to the idea that Catholics would
