The Roman correspondent of the Morning Post states that the
Papacy, though it has lost great amounts through injudicious investment, is still fairly well off. Its invest- ments, which have now been transferred to Italian under- takings, yield some 2400,000 a year, a sum which under the careful management of the Pope and Cardinal Mocenni, who acts as Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Vatican, is slowly increasing ; while 2240,000 more comes in from "Peter's Pence," the free gifts of the faithful all over the world. As the Vatican, and the immense ecclesiastical establishments of Rome, have to be supported out of this fund, the total of 2640,000 a year is by no means too large, and any considerable addition to "Peter's Pence" is heartily welcome. Considering that the Church in.dudee the upper classes of France, Austria, Spain, Brazil. and Spanish America, not to mention at least thirty-six millions of meaner households scattered over the earth, the statement does not say much for the devotion of the Roman Catholic world to its central religious authority. The total subscribed income represents at 3 per cent. only eight millions sterling, the fortune of a single first. class million- aire. The Vatican still rejects as unhallowed gold the million sterling a year which Italy is bound to pay her for the absorption of the States of the Church.
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