The Petition for the new Marian dogma had 300 signatures on January 31. In managing such affairs the Jesuits are unrivalled, for the Order is like a great actor, such as Garrick, _e.g._, whose every limb from top to toe moves, speaks, and conspires to express the same idea. Then they have an Infallibilist Petition from the East, the only one known to have been got up; that is to say, they made the Maronite boys and youths of their educational establishment sign the Petition they had drawn up. As I now hear, the majority, on January 25, resolved to let their Address and Petition drop, if the minority will accept Spalding’s proposed addition to the third _Schema_. They are indeed very magnanimous, for that addition, as was observed just now, goes much further and stands to the Address somewhat as Dido’s ox-hide cut up into thongs to the hide before it was cut: it will embrace whole countries and cities. Spalding desires too to have the Index placed completely under the shield of Papal Infallibility, and therefore the opinion that the Pope can have made any mistake about the sense of a book is to be condemned. Next day, the Petition of the minority, who knew nothing of the decision of the other party, was presented to the Pope and rejected by him. The Infallibilists appear to have spread the report that their Address had been actually given in simply for the purpose of catching their opponents in a trap. On Sunday, January 23, the Commission named by the Pope for examining motions proposed held its first sitting, under the presidency of Cardinal Patrizzi and not of the Pope himself, as was thought—seven weeks after the Council met and when a number of motions had long been awaiting its scrutiny. This delay had evidently been designed. It has now been resolved to arrange and examine proposals, not according to subjects but nations, so that the proposals of the French, Germans, etc., will be separately discussed and decided upon.