NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Conclave has done its work quickly and well. Fifty- nine Cardinals out of sixty-two had arrived in the Vatican when on Monday they were walled np, and on Tuesday morning the voting began. On Tuesday night the smoke of the burned voting-papers warned the Romans that the effort to secure a two-thirds majority had been ineffec- tual, but on Wednesday morning the work was accom- plished. Thirty-five Cardinals, it is stated, were found to have Toted for Cardinal Pecci, the favourite of the religious but moderate party, and thereupon Cardinal Franchi, head of another section—influenced, it is said, by Cardinal Schwarzenberg- stepped forward with nine followers and " adored " him as Pope. As he had thus received 45 votes, three more than the necessary two-thirds, the election was complete ; and Cardinal Pecci was announced to the crowd outside as Pope, under the name of Leo XIII. The successful candidate was born in 1810, and when quite a young man obtained a reputation by suppressing brigandage in Benevento, and subsequently has been Archbishop of Perugia and Nuncio at Brussels. He was dialed by Antonelli, and kept aloof from Rome ; but on the death of the Secretary of State, Pius IX. summoned him to the Vatican, and made him Camerlengo, the alter ego of the Pope in all matters of business except foreign affairs, which were entrusted to Cardinal Simeoni. The new Pope is supposed, on scarcely sufficient grounds, to be "moderate," but is declared on all hands to be a learned and able man, especially apt in govern- ment, of pure life, and of a most reverend and commanding presence. The Cardinals seem, in fact, to have chosen their best man, or at all events their best Italian. The first act of Leo XIII., the appointment of Cardinal Schwarzenberg, an opponent of the Dogma, as Camerlengo, is distinctly conciliatory.
