THE TABLET

A Weekly Newspaper and Review.

D u m VO B IS G R A TU L AM U R , AN IM O S ET IAM ADDIM U S U T IN INCCEPTIS V E S TR IS CON STAN TER M AN E A T IS .

From the Brief of H is Holiness to The Tablet, June 4, 1870.

Vol. 47. No. 1880. L o n d o n , A p r i l 22, 1876.

P r ice 5c!. B y P o st s % d .

[R e g is tered a t t h e G en e r a l P o s t O f f ic e a s a N ew s pa p e r .

C h ro n ic le o f t h e W e e k :—

Page

Queen and Empress.— Cardinal Guibert and the Chamber.— The Prefectoral Changes.— M. Louis Blanc and M. Victor Hugo.— Moderate Monarchists and the Moderate Republic.—Mgr. Dupanloup on the Conscription of Clerics.— The Catholic Universities and the State.— The New Viceroy of India.— The Barbadoes Difficulty.— Irish Irreconcilables. —The “ Finality” Theory.—The Presidential Contest in the States. —The American Scandal.— The Insurrection in Turkey.—The Turkish Official Bulletins.— Spain and “ Religious Unity.”— Anglicans in Italy, &c., &c. . . .. 513

CONTENTS.

Page

L e a d e r s :

The Bengal Famine Inquiry . . 517 The Irish University Bill .. .. 517 Poetical Politics .. . . .. 518 Parliamentary Representation in

Ireland .. .. .. •• 5*9 Sketches of the Reformation—

IX . .................................... 520 R e v ie w s :

The Life and Letters o f Lord

Macaulay . . . . . . . . 522 The Month for April . . .. 523 Life of Mother Maria Teresa .. 524 S hort N otices :

Sanctuary Meditations for Priests and Communicants . . .. 524 British Opium Policy . . . . 524 Jewish Sermons . . .. . . 524

Correspondence :

Page

The Declaration of Paris.. .. 525 Who Wrote the “ Imitation of

Christ ” ? . . .. .. . . 526 Divergences in Translation of

Prayers . . . . .. . . 526 Catholic Union of Great Britain.. 526 The “ Convents ” Division 526 A Centenarian who Accounts for his Age . . .. . . . . 327 Teetotalism .. .. . . .. 527 Mount Carmel .. .. .. 527 Difficulties of Ex-Anglican Clergy­

men not taking Orders .. .. 527 R ome :— Letter from our own Cor­

respondent . . . . . . 529 The Pope and the Cathedral of

S in ig aglia....................................530

D io c e s a n N ews :—

Westminster . . Beverley Birmingham .. Salford Scotland I r e lan d :

Page

Letter from our Dublin Correspondent .. From an Occasional Correspondent..

F oreign N ews :—

> : 533

France Germany ....................... . . 534 Austria •• 534 The Russian Persecution ., •• 535 M em oranda :

Religious

Literary G en er a l N ews

. . 535

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

THE attack on the title of “ Empress of

“ India” continues in the form of a drop--------- ping fire of letters addressed to the Liberal newspapers. Two things seem tobe assumed— one that the title of Empress will be allowed to supersede that of Queen in this country ; the other, that in India the title of Empress will be used by itself, and the present royal style will be there forgotten. Neither of these presumptions seems to us to be in the least warranted by probabilities. We may be perfectly sure that on no occasion of Court or social ceremony in England will the Queen assume the Indian title, or permit it to be officially used, and, if she does not take it herself, any officious attempt to give it to her will soon be put down by the public sense of what is fitting. Nor is there the slightest reason to suppose that, even in Indian documents, the title of Empress will be used so as to allow the present royal style to fall into disuse. It is as an addition to the latter, not as a substitute for it, that Parliament has sanctioned the appellation. Of course the agitation has been taken up by the people who are believers in “ the unfortunate nobleman ” at Dartmoor ; and in the “ Magna Charta ” demonstration on Monday the motto, “ We protest against the despotic title of Empress ” was paraded along with denunciations of the “ howling hounds “ and braying jackasses of St. Stephen’s,” and with a profane application of the text “ Whosoever shall deny me “ before men ” to those who did not recognise the “ Claimant ” as the person he represented himself to be.

absurd, as the English papers admit, to maintain that a Bishop or a priest may not write a letter recommending a candidate ; the right of M. Thiers or M. Gambetta to do so has not been questioned, and in a vast number of French constituencies the weight which the expression of their opinion would have with the electors is likely to be much greater than that which could be brought to bear on the vote by any ecclesiastic in France. Butin the present temper of the victorious Republicans the faintest expression of “ clerical ” opinion, the slightest symptom of “ clerical ” support, is likely to be fatal to a deputy. Fifteen out of the thirty-eight petitions which passed the bureaux and came under the judgment of the Chamber have been successful, and the unseated^deputies are nearly all Conservatives.

The same intolerance is visible in the disTHE content of the Republican Press at the last changes, changes m the Prefectures. New Prefects were appointed on Holy Thursday in nearly fifty departments ; all the old Prefects who have shown themselves actively hostile to the Republic have been dismissed, while those who were formerly Monarchical, but since the settlement of the new Constitution have kept within the bounds of propriety and impartiality, have been either maintained or transferred to other posts. This, however, does not satisfy the Radicals ; they protested loudly against an administrative propaganda in favour of Monarchy ; they now want to see an admininistrative propaganda of Republicanism. They have not yet seized the idea of a permanent civil service independent of party, and judging from the instance of the United States we should be inclined to say that this was a plant difficult to raise in the soil of modern Republics.

The request of the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris to be excused from attendance as a witand ihb ness ln the i ontivy inquiry has apparently c h a m b e r , given rise to some misconceptions on the part of the English Press. His Eminence has been represented as taking up a position which implies that he is above the law, and as having positively refused to give evidence. We have not the slightest doubt that if the Chamber of Deputies were to insist on his appearance the Cardinal would, as a French citizen, comply with its summons ; but his well-known aversion to political contests, and his strictly ecclesiastical habit of mind, have induced him to ask to be excused on grounds equivalent to a plea of n ih i l novit in causâ. He could, he said, give the Chamber no information beyond that contained in his letter, namely, that all he had to do with the Pontivy election was that he wrote to the Bishop of Vannes to say that the Abbé Cadoret had not received from him any sanction or encouragement in his candidature, while at the same time he had no reason for concealing the fact that his sympathies as a private individual were with the Comte de Mun. It is quite

M. LOUIS BLANC AND M. VICTOR

HUGO.

On Sunday last a meeting was held at the Château d’Eau in Paris to take leave of the workmen who are going as delegates to the Philadelphia Exhibition. It was attended by all the great Radical celebrities, but the chief interest of the occasion centred in two speeches, delivered by M. Louis Blanc and M. Victor Hugo. The first-named gentlemen was fairly reasonable— anybody indeed would appear sober when compared with M. Victor Hugo—but he pleaded the admission of the Southerners to co-operate in the American Exhibition as an argument for an amnesty to the Communists. This monstrous comparison so excited the ire o f an American from the Southern States who was present that he with difficulty restrained himself from rushing on the orator. We can scarcely suppose that M. Louis Blanc deliberately intended to place General Lee and Mr. Jefferson Davis in the same category with Cluseret and Raoul Rigault, or to class the planters and soldiers of the Southern States with the miscreants who shot the hostages. But by dint of working the amnesty cry as a weapon against the late Go

New Series, V ol. XV. No. 389.