People We Hear About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 18, 4 May 1899, Page 6

People We Hear About.

A Buenos Ayres contemporary announces the death of Mr. E. T. Mulhall, proprietor of the Standard newspaper there. Mr. Mulhall was a brother of the eminent statistician of that name, and a man of the most generous disposition. Mr. Robert Myler, of South Bend, Indiana, has given two acres of land to the Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan Historical Society for a site for the monument to be erected in honour of Chevalier De La Salle, the explorer. The situation is one of the most picturesque on the St. Joseph river, and is the spot where La Salle landed, over 200 years ago, on his voyage up the river, and established a post. The British Government (says the London Times) will probably appoint Baron Russell, of Killowen, the Lord Chief Justice of England, to succeed the late Baron Herschell on the Joint High Commission. This would be a highly advantageous selection, while his being a Catholic would make him persona grata to S r Wilfrid Laurier and a large section of the Canadians. Though it would be difficult to spare him from his important functions at home it would not be easy to suggest an alternative appointment. Mr. George Wyndham, the Imperial Under Secretary for War, is, notwithstanding acute political differences, a universal favourite with the Irish Nationalist Members, both on personal and ancestral grounds. He is the great grandson of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the leader of the Irish Rebellion in 1798, who died of wounds sustained in that struggle, and Wyndham has often been congratulated by his Irish friends on his likeness to his ancestor. An amusing story is told of the present Earl of Antrim, who is well-known in the North of Ireland as a lover of agriculture and any kind of farming. An aristocratic gentleman, who shall be nameless, sent a letter to his lordship complaining that his conduct was not that of a titled Earl but rather that of a country farmer. 1 1 saw you myself,' he wrote, ' driving three cows to market, and consider it disgraceful,' etc. In reply to this extremely personal epistle, the Earl thanked the writer, and merely added that a mistake had been made, ' For it was not three cows you saw me drive to market, but two cows and a bull !' In referring to Sir George Dibbs the other day as 'an extinct volcano ' Premier Reid was repeating history. The first use of that phrase in politics is recorded of Thomas Sexton. In the bullying style he assumed in his later days John Bright, pointing to Sexton (whose argument was unanswerable Bave by abuse), asked the Commons, ' What is Mr. Sexton that he and his friends should be considered in this House V ' And what is the right hon. gentleman V was Sexton's quick retort. •He is an extinct volcano.' Never did the onetime ' old man eloquent ' receive such a crushing rebuke ; and it was thoroughly deserved. ° The Hon. Richard W. Pennefather, Attorney-General of West Australia, who is a Tipperary man and a Catholic, was educated in Melbourne, where he took, at the University, the decrees of B.A. and L.L.B. He was called in IS7B to the Victor. an Bar, and afterwards also to that of New South Wales, practising hia profession both in Melbourne and Sydney. In 1596 he went to West Australia, where, after the elapse of the interval of bix months required, he was admitted to the Bar of that colony, making his mark &o rapidly that in 1897 he was returned to Parliament as M.L.A. for Greenough' In October, 1897, on the retirement of Mr. Burt, he was offered by Sir John Forrest the portfolio of the Attorney -General, the duties of Whose office he still discharges with distinguished ability. Mr. Aubrey de Vere, the well known Irish poet and writer, is thus described in an article in New Ireland : — ' In personal appearance he is very tall, wears his hair rather long, and has a most dignified and impressive presence. London sees but little of Aubrey de Vere, who lives entirely at Curragh Chase, not far from Adare. County Limerick. The two brothers, now close upon the nineties devote most of their time to literature. Up to ten or fifteen years' ago Aubrey de Vere was a constantly Feen figure in London literary circles, wßeTe his learning, his culture, and his simplicity of manner made him the centre of interest.' Ireland, the writer adds is justly proud of Aubrey de Vere as one of her greatest and best literary sons. The Rev. Don Lorenzo Perosi, the young composer of Oratorio whose ' Resurrection of Christ,' recently performed in Rome, scored such a great success, is said to be engaged on another Oratorio Professor Cameroni describes the work in a recent issue of the Lrqu Lombarda, furnishing facts which he derived from the illustrio'ui maestro himself. The idea of this Oratorio, which will probably be entitled Natale, — the Nativity— was already mature in the mind of the author when he won his great •'riumph at Rome in December last, with the ' Resurrection of Christ.' He then confided to Cameroni that he had the idea of introducing into the orchestra at the moment when the Birth of Christ was described the theme of the Passion, as if to indicate the ultimate and unique bcope of the coming of God on earth. There recently passed away a worthy priest whose name was associated with an incident which, more than thirty years ago, caused no little excitement and indignation throughout Belgium. The Abbej Van Hammee Rombaut, late cure of Notre Dame d'Hanswvck was in 1866 chaplain of the House of Correction at Vilvorde, and in the course of a judicial investigation he was questioned on matters which he had heard in the confessional. Declining to divulge the information which had been communcated to him in the tacred tribunal, he was prosecuted for this ' offence ' and condemned to fifteen days, imprisonment 1 The occurrence goes to illustrate what small regard Liberals entertain for the scruples of a ' consoientous objector,' more especially when he happens to be a Catholic priest.

Mr. King, the new Resident Magistrate of Norfolk Island, haa tak°n with him from Sydney a veteran who has been in his service for many years, Michael M'Namara. Mr. M'Namara— a native of Temp emore. County Tipperary, enlisted in the British army in the early fifties, aud only served some six years ; but those years he spent almost constantly under fire. He passed through the Crimea war from start to finish— lobt his right eye while skirmishing through the impact of a ahell-splinter ; was seriously wounded in the breast at Inkerman, and was blown up with the Redan, from which he retired with both hands mutilated. Great Britain then gave him a pension of Is 6d per day, for he was at that time past further military service ; and for over 40 years he has not only drawn his pension, but has supplemented it by the proceeds of hard toil in the back- blocks of New South Wales. v♦ • Mr 'i \'a J ' .M". M " S T tar , kie ' the new Resident Commissioner of National Education, Ireland was born in Sligo on December 10, 1860, being the fifth son of the late William R. Starkie, J.P., R.M of Cregane Manor, Roscarbery, who died in 1897. He was educated at bhrewsbury School, and subsequently entered Trinity College Cambridge, in which he took out the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts Daring his academic career at Cambridge he obtained a Foundation Scholarship and a first class in the Classical Tripos. In Trinity College, Dublin, he also gained several distinctions. In 1889 he secured a classical studentship worth £700 and was First Senior Moderator and Gold Medallist in Classics and becond bemor Moderator in Logics and Ethics. He also gained the nrst Vice-Chancellor's gold medal for Latin. At the Fellowship examination in 1889 he won the Madden prize of £400, and in 1890 after gaining theTyrrel Memorial gold medal for olassical composition, he became a Fellow of Trinity College, having obtained the highest recorded marks in Classics. -Mr. Starkie, from 1883 to 1886, was Professor of Classical Literature in the Catholic University of Ireland. He was appointed a Commissioner of Bduoation for Ireland in 1880. In 1896 he became a member of the Academic Council of Dublin University. In the following year he was appointed president of Queen's College, Galway. Dr. Herzfald, who attended the Princess of Bulgaria in her illness, gives the following details of her last hours .—The Princess though in delicate health, awaiting her confinement soon, attended the festival of Epiphany and the following parade, being one hour and a half in the open air, and a few days afterwards she rested on a bench in the Palace gardens, her feet in deep snow. There she caught the bronchitis which developed into inflammation of both lungs, and, after a series of collapses, ended fatally with paralysis of the lungs. On Tuesday morning the Princess regained consciousness, and called for her children, whom the prince brought to her. Addressing herself to her husband, she said, • I am going to die, but in spirit I shall always be «rith you, and in Heaven I shall watch over you, over our children, and over Bulgaria and the cause of Bulgaria ' Turning to Boris, she said, 'You will always think of me as I thought of you, and when one day you will come to the throne you will be honest and pure.' The Princess then blessed and kissed all her children, and embraced her huaband, who held her hand in his weeping. Soon the dying Princess lost consciousness. The Princess', who was a devout Catholic, never got over the conduct of Stambuloff in compelling her son Boris to be brought up in the Orthodox Greek Church after the formal stipulation, made at the time of her marriage, that her children should be trained in her own religion. This change of faith, which was done at the iustigation of Russia, made the Princess the deadly foe of the late Prime Minister. Referring to the dignities recently conferred on some of the priests of the archdiocese of Welliagton by His Grace Archbishop liedwood, the Taranaki Herald says :— lt may be interesting to many of our readers to know that four of the priests had been at one time in charge of parishes in Taranaki The Very Rev Dean Rolland was parish priest in New Plymouth from 1860 to 1872, and attended the spiritual wants of the Catholics as far down the coast as Patea. During the war with the Maoris Father Rolland was always present with the colonial forces when going into action, and was at the engagement at Ngatu-o-te-Manu. Amongst other things the late Major von Tempsky wrote to the Wanganui Times; 'As soon as any man dropped, he (Father Rolland) was by his side ; he did not a^k " are you a Catholic ."' or " are you a Pro'ebtant ?" but kneeling-, prayed for his " last words." ' The Very Pev. Dean Binsfield temporarily filled Father Holland's place during 1869-70, and was the only clergyman who took part ia the demonstration held in New Plymouth on the departure of the last Imperial regiment (18th Royal Irish) from New Zealand for Melbourne, en route for England January 17 h, 1870. The Very Rev. Dean McKenna is the present r-arish priebt in New Plymeuth. He came here on September 15th, 1889, taking over a debt on the Church property of £450 ; also the debt on the Inglewood property of £116. During the ten years the Key. Dean has been in this place he has cleared off the old debts at New Plymouth and Inglewood, built at the former place a handsome new church, started a library which has over a thousand volumes in it, consisting of secular as well as religious work, and done many other things which want of space prevents us from particularising. He also built at Stratf jrd a church of good dimensions, as well as one at Okato ; and at the former place a convent has through his exertions been recently erected. The old church at Inglewood is to be replaced by a new on««, the foundation stone of which was laid by hid Grace the Archbishop of Wellington on Sunday, March 26. II is not only in the towns that the Rev. Dean McKenna has been at work, for he travels into the most isolated parts of the district where any of his people are known to be settled. The Dean is much beloved by his people, and hi« kind and genial nature has also gained for him the esteem of all sections of the community. The Very Rev. Dean Grogan, who is now at Napier, waß parish priest at Hawera for many years, and during eight months, in 1880, when New Plymouth was without a priest, Father Grogan used to visit occasionally that town.