Our Magazine.—Baltimore Catholic Mirror: Donahoe's Magazine (Boston) has occupied a field exclusive to itself from the start—it is the popular magazine for the Catholic masses. It is not like those flimsy ventures which, under the title of "popular," get the people's money without giving them adequate returns. On the contrary, it is ample in scope, and its well-stored pages are carefully selected by its veteran editor. The leading article in its January issue is that on Cardinal McCloskey, by John Gilmary Shea.
A Belfast paper says: "As regards opposition from the minority in Ulster, it will soon subside. An Irish Parliament, once established, will have no warmer supporters than Protestants of the North." The Orangemen are but a small fraction of the Protestants of that part of Ireland.
A Bad Outlook.—At the present time there are in London about one hundred and fifty thousand persons in want and penury. There are nearly forty thousand men out of employment, and some ten thousand persons are sunk so low, physically and mentally, that many of them are in dire necessity, and were it not for the timely aid of the charitable, their hard fate would soon increase the number of those who die from starvation in the streets of the richest city in the world.
Smothering Children.—In a recent inquest in London a physician testified that the practice to which young mothers are addicted, of lying over their infants at night, caused the death of about five hundred children a year in London alone.
Munster Bank.—Two of the directors of the late "Munster," have appeared in the Bankruptcy Court:—William Shaw, whose indebtedness to the bank is stated to amount to over £129,000; and Nicholas Dan Murphy, indebted in the sum of over £24,000. A manager, other than Mr. Farquharson, who, by the way, is not dead, will probably find himself in the hands of the liquidators before long.
Tobacco.—The "paternal" government of Ireland prohibits the raising of tobacco. Mr. Thomas Power O'Connor, Nationalist Member for Liverpool, gave notice that he would introduce a bill to repeal the prohibition of the cultivation of tobacco in Ireland.
Father Burke was often heard to say that he could never speak at home as in America. "I never knew what freedom was," he declared, "until I set foot on the emancipated soil of Columbia. Then I said, 'I am a free man, and I will speak my soul.'"
President Cleveland has signed the Presidential Succession bill. The law now lodges the presidential succession in the cabinet, and puts seven men in the line of eligibility for the place. It so happens that all of the present cabinet are Americans by birth, and over thirty-five years of age.
The returns from the late ball of the Charitable Irish Society is estimated to be about $800. At this rate it will take a long time to build that hall.
The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster has written to Rome in favor of the canonization of Joan of Arc.