. The Tribuna of Rome has given currency to a
rather melodramatic story about the finances of the Vatican. Cardinal Gotti, Prefect of the Propaganda, recently, said the journal, presented himself before the Pope carrying Italian bonds to the value of £1,600,000, which he threw down at his Holiness's feet, declaring that they had been entrusted to him by Leo XIIL to be delivered to the next Pope four months after his election ! The Tribuna also affirms that two sackfuls of gold containing £360,000 were recently discovered hidden behind a bookcase. The latter story is nonsense, for that amount of gold would weigh four tons ; and the former is denied by all concerned—including the Pope—and is in-. trinsically improbable. There are always fictions in circula- tion about the wealth of the Papacy, and they are natural enough. The Papacy is a Government of a kind, and a Government which never issues a Budget is sure to be accused either of a grand hoard or of insolvency. As a matter of fast, we believe, "Peter's Pence," the subscriptions to the Sustentation Fund, are very necessary to the Vatican, so necessary as sometimes to influence its policy.
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