The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-01-16 00:00:00

A NOVEL IDEA OF LANDLORDISM.

Our Paris letter of Tuesday, informs us that some enthusiast,
with a boundless belief apparently in the paternal character
of the present Government, has proposed that the government
should become the landlord of all Paris. He wishes to see
dear lodgings at an end. He thinks the only means to bring
about this result is to make the Government proprietor of every
house in the city. It would not be a difficult job, according to
the writer of this pamphlet. Bills could be issued in payment
of the sundry -hundreds of millions of francs that would be
required to gain possession of the property ; a new and happy
state of things would follow; lodgings would be cheap (why, of
course is too impertinent a question to ask) ; these would be
no extortion practised; better accommodation would be pro-
vided; profit, instead of going into the pockets of rapacious
proprietaires, would enrich the Government. and conse-
quently the country ! What happiness ! But what fol-
lows is still better. The author says, that, as concierges
would become Government servants under the new system,
their condition would be improved. and they would rise i❑
importance, and deserves to do so. The concierges Govern-
ment servants ! They are bad enough at. present, but make
public functionaries of them, and no man's lodging would have
a shred of comfort left. It is amusing to think of a proposition

I:ke this. None but a Frenchman could have dreamed of
making it. As the Debats very appropriately says, people in
France always expect the Government (not the present in
particular, but any and every Government) to do too much.
It must look after affairs that private people themselves are
more fitted to control. It must meddle and interfere with
the smallest, as with the largest, nifeirs of life. Much of the
apathy of the French, in respect to what may be called domestic
reform, is to be explained by the pi evalence of this feeling
The Government is ever present to the minds of the
people as the machine by which the work of the country
is to be performed. Why, if a man is run over in the street,
or if a person commits suicide, not a soul will offer assistance
until a policeman comes in eight. The newspapers con-
tinually tell how, noises having been heard which indicated
that suicide was being committed, the people who heard those
noises, inst.ead of at once rendering aid, went and informed
" the authorities."

PURIFYING THE CHURCH lIV TVIIICH THE
ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS WAS SLAIN.

The ceremony by which the Church of St. Etienne du
Mont was purified and made fit to be again used as a temple
of Christian worship took place on Monday. A large number
of people were on the spat, attracted by the novelty of the
occurrence. The Archbishop of Evreux presided over the
ceremony. Prior to the commencement of it he was re-
ceived in the neighbouring Church or St. Genevieve (better
known to the English people as the Pantheon) by a largo
number of the clerical authorities of the diocese. A pro-
cession was formed, and in a short time it marched towards
the oiler church. Arrived in front of St. Etienne du Mont,
the Archbishop knelt upon a cushion prepared for him, and
blessed tlio water brought to him. The procession then
walked round the church, the Archbishop sprinkling holy
water upon the walls as he went along, and the priests in
attendance singing the psalm " Miserero." Returning to
the front of the church, litanies were said, and then the
whole of the priests officiating knelt down, and three times
cried aloud, " Saint Etienne pray for us !" The church was
then entered, the Archbishop leading the way. As soon as
the threshold was passed other litanies were Said, and " Saint
Etienne pray for us !" was again repeated. The archbishop
then blessed the Gregorian water, as it is called, that is to say,
water mixed with wine salt, and cinders, He then walked
solemnly round the church three times, followed by the pro-
cession. The fifst time he sprinkled• the upper part of the walls
with the Gregorian water; the second time he sprinkled the
lower part, and the third time the pavement. This done, the
whole of the company app-oached the spot where the murder
had been committed, knelt down, and sang with much effect
the prayer, "Pares, domine, parce, pooulo Imo." The scene
at this point of the ceremony was very striking. As the sound
fell upon the ear it seemed as though voices were speaking
from another world. The look of the priests grouped around
the scene of crime bad a dramatic air that could not fail to
create its effect. Catholics find these and similar ceremonies
mere chew they say, and envy us the simplicity of our reformed
I worship; am speaking, of course, of Catholics of liberal
religious views, but these pompous displays habe a certain
solemn grandeur in them which imposes upon a spectator
unused to such sights. Protestants almost invariably are much
affected by the real beauty of the Catholic ceremonial, but
they would soon find it wearying, doubtless, if they saw it
often. A few more ceremonies, ending with the blessing of
the crowd outside, and St. Etienne du Mont was " reconciled"
to holy Moller Church, according to the forms duly provided.

ALLEGED DEPORTATION OF FRENCH
OUTCASTS.

At one of the London police courts, on Wednesday,
Emilie Triese, a middle aged man, in an evident state of
great destitution, but who described himself as an Italian
merchant, was brought up on remand, charged under the
following peculiar circumstances appeared from the
evidence of a police constable of the K division, that on
the night of Tuesday se'nnight the prisoner was discovered
coiled up under a quantity of loose straw, in a detached
shed at the rear of the dwelling house of a gentleman at
Old Ford, and it having been suspected that he had made
his way there for felonious purposes, he was given into
custody. In answer to the charge, the prisoner, through
the medium of an interpreter, emphatically denied having
been actuated by any felonious intention, and informed the
magistrate that he had parried on business as a merchant,
at the town of Lyons, in France, for 21 years, but having
fallen into difficulties, he was formally expatriated by the
local authorities, in common with numerous other persons
in the same condition, and that he had been wandering
about for the last month in a houseless state, and without
the slightest means of subsistence. Mr. D'Eyncourt said
that it was a most extraordinary statement. and that he
should order the prisoner to be remanded for a ,week. to
afford the police an opportunity of obtaining further
information with regard to his antecedents. Henri
Delavitte, a detective officer attached to the French
Embassy, now attended and stated that he had closely
interrogated the prisoner, who persisted in declaring that
he had been expelled from Lyons and shipped over to this
country at the expense of the French Government, under
the circumstances described. Mr. D'Eyncourt said that
if the particulars of the case had been correctly stated, he
considered that the attention of Government should be
directed to the subject, and the prisoner in the mean
time must be conveyed to the workhouse of the district
in which he was found, where he would be provided with
a temporary asylum.

LIVERPOOL BANKRUPTCY COURT, YESTERDAY.—(Before
Mr. Commissioner Stevenson.)—ln re lladwen and
INPG-egor.—This was an adjourned last examination
sitting. The bankrupt, Mr. M'Gregor, was examined at
some length touching the general account of their
Havannah firm, at the time the Liverpool house became
bankrupt, after which the examination was further
adjourned.