This concludes my budget of news.  A whole page is covered with quotations from Villemain’s pamphlet, La France, l’Empire et la Papaute; but as my own personal experience must of course be the best evidence as to the blessings of a Papal government, this seems to me to be carrying coals to Newcastle.  I have then a list of the strangers arrived at Rome, one advertisement of some religious work, The Devotions of Saint Alphonso Maria de Liguori, a few meteorological observations from the Pontifical observatory, and half-a-dozen official notices of legal judgments, in cases about which, till now, I have never been allowed to hear a single allusion.  I have, however, the final satisfaction of observing that my paper was printed at the office of the Holy Apostolic Chamber.

“Ex uno,” my Roman friend might truly say, “disce omnes.”  The number I have taken as a sample is one of more than average interest.  I know, indeed, no greater proof of the anxiety and alarm of the Papal government than that so much intelligence should be allowed to ooze out through the Roman press.  I know also of no greater proof of its weakness.  A strong despotic government may ignore the press altogether; but a despotism which tries to defend itself by the press, and such a press, must be weak indeed.  None but a government of priests, half terrified out of their senses, would dream of feeding strong men with such babes’ meat as this.  There are Signs of the Times even in the Giornale di Roma.

CHAPTER VII.  THE POPE’S TRACT.

If it has ever been the fortune of my readers to mix in tract-distributing circles, they will, doubtless, have become acquainted with a peculiar style of literature which, for lack of a more appropriate appellation, I should call the “candid inquirer” and “intelligent operative” style.  The mysteries of religion, the problems of social existence, the intricate casuistries of contending duties, are all explained, in a short and simple dialogue between a maid-servant and her mistress; or a young, a very young man, and his parochial pastor, or a ne’er-do-weel sot and a sober, industrious artisan.  The price is only a penny (a reduction made on ordering a quantity), and the logic is worthy of the price.

In its dire distress and need the Papacy has resorted, as a forlorn hope, to the controversial tract system.  As an abstract matter this is only fair play.  The Pope has had so many millions of tracts published against him, that it is hard if he may not produce one little one in his own defence.  His Holiness may say with truth, in the words of Juvenal,

   Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam,
   Vexatus toties?