estminster Cathedral had been sacked, every altar overthrown,
indescribable indignities performed there. An unknown priest had
scarcely been able to consume the Blessed Sacrament before he was seized
and throttled; the Archbishop with eleven priests and two bishops had
been hanged at the north end of the church, thirty-five convents had
been destroyed, St. George's Cathedral burned to the ground; and it was
reported even, by the evening papers, that it was believed that, for the
first time since the introduction of Christianity into England, there
was not one Tabernacle left within twenty miles of the Abbey. "London,"
explained the _New People_, in huge headlines, "was cleansed at last of
dingy and fantastic nonsense."

It was known at about fifteen-and-a-half o'clock that at least seventy
volors had left for Rome, and half-an-hour later that Berlin had
reinforced them by sixty more. At midnight, fortunately at a time when
the police had succeeded in shepherding the crowds into some kind of
order, the news was flashed on to cloud and placard alike that the grim
work was done, and that Rome had ceased to exist. The early morning
papers added a few details, pointing out, of course, the coincidence of
the fall with the close of the year, relating how, by an astonishing
chance, practically all the heads of the hierarchy throughout the world
had been assembled in the Vatican which had been the first object of
attack, and how these, in desperation, it was supposed, had refused to
leave the City when the news came by wireless telegraphy that the
punitive force was on its way. There was not a building left in Rome;
the entire place, Leonine City, Trastevere, suburbs--everything was
gone; for the volors, poised at an immense height, had parcelled out the
City beneath them with extreme care, before beginning to drop the
explosives; and five minutes after the first roar from beneath and the
first burst of smoke and flying fragments, the thing was finished. The
volors had then dispersed in every direction, pursuing the motor and
rail-tracks along which the population had attempted to escape so soon
as the news was known; and it was supposed that not less than thirty
thousand belated fugitives had been annihilated by this foresight. It
was true, remarked the _Studio_, that many treasures of incalculable
value had been destroyed, but this was a cheap price to pay for the
final and complete extermination of the Catholic pest. "There co