Pope's Blessing Bodes Ill for Panama Canal
The good-natured Pope Leo has bestowed his apostolic benediction on M. De Lesseps's Panama canal project. This is ominous, and ought to cause a still further depreciation of the stock; for it has unfortunately so happened of late that everything to which the pope has given that same apostolic benediction has fared ill. He blessed the Neopolitan king just before the latter was pushed out of his throne by Garibaldi; he blessed Napoleon III. shortly before Sedan; he sent sympathy and blessing to Eugenie, and her poor boy was shortly after butchered by Zulus; he blessed Isabella over and over again, and that queen hasn't had a day's luck for many years; he blessed the marriage of Alfonso and Mercedes, and poor Mercedes died childless within a twelve-month. It is only those whom he has cursed, like Victor Immanuel and Bismarck, who get along well in the world. He must have got his benedictions and his anathemas mixed up, like the two foundlings in Pinafore.—Detroit Evening News.