People we Near About.

New Zealand Tablet, Issue 43, 26 October 1899, Page 21

People we Near About.

A Boston letter states that within the next few weeks Mrs. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop will become a member of one of the well-known sisterhoods. Mrs. Lathrop is a daughter of Hawthorne, the great novelist, and since her conversion has been an uncompromising Catholic.

Bishop Butt, of Southwark, whose jubilee has just been celebrated, was formerly an army chaplain, and pervert through the Crimean War. At that time he was so prostrated with illness and so near death that his soldiers procured a coffin for his interment. It is said in Southwark that the coffin has been preserved by the Bishop to the present day.

Mr. W. H. Lever, managing director of Lever Brothers) Limited, soap manufacturers, Port Sunlight, Birkenhead, at the close of the workers' picnic to Llandudno, announced that the directors had decided, during May and June next year, to take all the workpeople, male and female, over twenty years of age, together with the men's wives, to visit the Paris Exhibition. About 2000 will participate in the trip, which will extend over three days.

It is stated by an American exchange that the Rev. Norman D. Holly, a former resident of Philadelphia and New York, who was a Protestant Episcopalian, but entered the Church twelve years ago, was ordained to the priesthood in Rome recently. He commenced Mb studies with the Dominicans at St. Rose's, Kentucky , but his health failed and he was compelled to desist. Upon recovery he resumed his studies at Freiburg, Germany, and completed them at Rome. He was ordained for the diocese of Westminster, England. His mother, who is also a convert, is an officer of the Confraternity of St. Gabriel, one of the objects of which is to form a social centre for converts who find themselves ostracized by former friends.

Mr. Thomas Gallaher, whose name was mentioned in connection with the probable purchase of the Muckross estate and the Lakes of Killarney, some time ago, is well known throughout the British Isles as the proprietor of the famous ' Irish Roll,' though it is now long since the concern passed from his sole individual proprietorship into a limited company, of which, however, the reins remain in his own strong grasp. The Belfast factory of Gallaher, Limited, stands on four acres of ground, and there are, besides, warehouses in London, Liverpool, and Dublin. Mr. Gallaher, who is f><) years of age, and. entirely self-made, is hard-headed, cool, and unflinching in a purpose once taken, but under this apparently unassailable exterior is concealed a warm and kindly nature.

Sir James Henderson, of Belfast, has been elected President of the British Institute of Journalists for the ensuing year in succession to Sir Wemyss Reid. Next year's conference will be held in London, and a trip to the Paris Exhibition will be a feature of the programme.

Lord Wolseley, the Commander-in-Chief, has just completed hia sixty-sixth year. Time was when this distinguished soldier was spoken of as our only general ; but, without in any way disparaging the reputation of Lord Wolseley, we have since found out that there are others. There have been times of necessity, and with the hour has invariably come the man. Of late years Lord Wolseley has blossomed out into the world of literature. Hia Soldiers' Pocltet BooJt is Tommy Atkins's professional v % ade mecvm; his Lift of the Duke of Marlborough and Decline and Fall of Najwli'on are already reckoned among our military olassics. Lord Wolseley has one child, a daughter, the Hon. Frances Garnet Wolseley ; but the title will not die, as, by special remainder, it is to pass to her. She is 27 years of age.

New Zealand does not stand alone as a Colony where unfounded charges of political corruption are made against public men. Cmada is not without its scandal- mongers. There was an affecting scene in the Canadian House of Commons recently when Sir Wilfred Laurier, the Premier, rose to reply to an accusation of the Conservative whip, Mr. Taylor, M.P. The statement was that his home, handsomely furnished, had been presented to him as a gift by a leading firm of Government contractors for Yukon supplies. ' Did the cable tell you,' writes the Ottawa correspondent of the Daily News, ' that the Prime Minister suddenly lost control of his voice for a while as the words fell from his lips, and he stood looking with white face and outstretched arm across the House at Mr. Taylor ?' He said he had bought the house himself, paying 5500 dollars cash down, and furnishing it, except a few gifts to Lady Laurier, from intimate friends, raising the money on his personal note, and giving a mortgage for the balance of the purchase money of the house (4000 dollars). ' I bought the house in the name of my wife,' said he. ' because, being poor, and well knowing if I died I would have nothing to leave her, I thought it would be right to give her a home.' And the Premier of Canada faltered, and his voice quivered, and for a little space he had to stop speaking. Sir Wilfred Laurier's speech profoundly affected the House, and it is proposed to raise a fund of 100,000 dollars to present to the Premier. Lord Strathcona offered 10,000 dollars to the fund, or 20,000 if necessary. Sir John Macdonald, who held the Premiership for many years, waa in straitened circumstances before his death, and his friends presented bun a tribute in the shape of a money testimonial. Sir George F. Cartier and Sir John Thompson died so poor that Parliament had to vote a sum of money to thsir families to place them above want. The Premier's salary is only 8000 dollars (£IOOO sterling).