There is a remarkable letter from Rome in the Times
of. 'Tuesday, on the subject of the extraordinary fibs told in the Roman Press, and thence transmitted to Ireland and elsewhere, -on the subject of the Pope's attitude towards Ireland, towards the Irish Bishops, towards Mr. Errington, and towards the Propaganda itself. The number of these " Hiberno-Rornan" fables, as the Roman correspondent calls them, is portentous, and 'a careful collation of these fables would clearly prove that either there are two distinct Mr. Erringtons, or else no Mr. Errington at all. The writer intimates that the Pope himself -determined that the recent letter to the Irish Bishops should not on any account be put away in the pigeon-holes of those prelates, -and so be deprived of all its effect ; in other words, that the Pope himself took care that what was called the "indiscretion" -of confiding that missive to the Press should be committed. Leo XIII. never uttered a brutum fulinen in his life, and when he has once decided on a course, though he never over-expresses what he means to say, he never fails to say it, and to say it -effectually. The " Hiberno-Romau" fables may try to raise a mystification on the subject, but Leo XIII. is too much of a statesman to be easily foiled by the legends of the Roman and Hibernian Press.
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