Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Military Technology, Religious Authority, War, Miracle, Supernaturalism

    Discusses a Morning Post report of the visit of Pope Pius IX to a military hospital where a wounded soldier from France (then at war with Italy) explain to him the mechanism of the Chassepot Rifle. Accounts for this apparently puzzling interest by the 'Prince of Peace' in a weapon of war by pointing out that the Pope wanted to know how this weapon had '"done wonders" for the temporalities of the Holy See', the only wonders, Punch adds, that have been 'done for the Papacy' of late. Concludes by speculating whether the Pope will explain the miracle of the 'winking Madonna of Rimini' in return.