ACCORDING to the following which was published in the Catholic Mirror, the pope, though professedly a “prisoner” in the Vatican, is the owner of a vehicle, the purpose of which is altogether out of keeping with the tradition of his imprisonment:— The pope owns a sleeping-car. It was constructed in 1868, when the line from Rome to Naples was opened, and will be shown at the Milan exhibition in 1905 to inaugurate the Simplon tunnel. The car consists of three compartments—a throne room, a compartment for the guard of honor, and a bed-room. The throne room is richly furnished and has a cupola engraved with the papal arms and the twelve apostles. It is so arranged that the pope, when seated on his throne, can be plainly seen by the crowds who might be expected to throng the stations for his blessing. Two years after the construction of the pope’s car his temporal dominion suddenly came to an end, the pontiff shut himself up in the Vatican, and chose rather to deprive the multitudes of the papal blessing than to admit the claim of the Italian sovereign to the dominion of Rome.