People We Hear About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9, 1 March 1900, Page 30

People We Hear About.

The Duke of Norfolk, who recently celebrated Kit, :>-> id birthday, succeeded his father in ]K(>o. The premier Duke has, therefore, the further priority of having borne his tale — th * only one in existence granted by Richard 111. — for 40 years, a longer period than has fallen to the lot of any other English Duke outside the Royal Family Miss Agnes Macready, who has written under the nom-de-phnur of ' Airah Luen ' for the Sydney Ctithohr I'r •>"■, went ([vu ir ly to South Africa a few months ago to nurse the wounded on the battlefield. Miss Macready is a qualified nurse. She paid her own expenses. She is also acting as corre--pr>ndent for borne of the Sydney newspapers. Lord Salisbury brought up all his children to do something. His eldest son in a hard-working member of Parliament. Another is rector of the family parish ; another i* an indu-triou* barrister ; another is a tall soldier now at the front. One of the daughters is married to Lord Selbourne ; another, a very clever lady, elected to devote herself to her father and mother. The owner of some of the most valuable silver and gold mines in Arizona is Mr. Patrick Driscoll. a County Antrim man. Though deriving a large income, Mr. Driscoll is of th.; most frugal turn of mind, and his monthly expenses do not exceed 30 dollars. He is a man of unbounded generosity, any sons of the Old Soil who happen to be in difficulties find him a splendid and open-hearted benefactor. Probably every admirer of Robert Louis Stevenson supposes that he wrote his fascinating books fi ?ently ; but h s own testimony, in a playful postscript, is this 'Be it known to this fluent generation that I. It.L S , in the forty-third year of my age, and the twentieth of uiy professional life, wrote 24 pages in 21 day-, working from (i to 1 1. and again in the afternoon from 2to lor so, without fail or interruption. Such are the gifts the gods have endowed us withal.' Rev. Father Hudson, editor of the Arc Mann, Rev. Father Baart, of Michigan, and Father Elliott, of the Paulibts, have by request prepared papers to be read at the Australasian Catholic Congress, which is to meet in Sydney next October, under the presidency of Cardinal Moran. Father Hudson treats of Christian principler as our guide, our individual conduct in family life and in our duties to the State. Father Baart treats of Church and State relations in the United States. Father Elliott writes on Christian charity, as applying Christian principles in our dealing with those around us. The late Father HaWn, C.SS.R.. who died recently at the Redemptorist Monastery, Waratah. N.S.W., was in early life in the Commissariat Department of the British Army. He served in the Crimean War, and at the conclusion of hostilities made his way like so many others to the goldfields of Victoria He was an Anglican. and made his studies in Oxford. Some years after his reception into the Church, he made up his mind to enter the prie-thood and was ordained in Rome in 1^77. Having joined the Redemptonst Fathers, he was one of the first batch of the fathers chosen to come to Australia.

Lord Lovat, who has been writing an account of his adventures in Abyssinia, is the owner of a vast domain of deer forests in Inverne«s-?hire and of a great deal of the soil in Inverness itself. His principal abode is Beaufort Castle, close to Beauly, where the fishing has been rented more than one season by the Duke of Portland. The late Lord Lovat, who died while deer-stalking, once made a bet he would leave London for Beaufort and be back in forty-eight hours, having caught a salmon, shot a brace of grouse, and killed a stag ; and he won his bet. He spent enormous sums on the house at Beaufort. Lord Lovat is the head of Catholici^L in the .North or. Scotland. Politics, like poverty, make btrange bed-fellows. The present Victorian Ministry, according to the Melbourne correspondent of the Otaijo Daily Times, is certainly a peculiar political combination. Mr McLean i-i a rabid protectionist and anti-federalist ; Mr Shiels a most erratic individual, all fireworks and glitter, the very worst Treasurer the colony ever possessed, again at that important poet ; Mr Irvine a staunch freetrader and federalist ; and so on. Rather a curious specimen is Mr Melville, of the Upper Houpe, who is the new Minister of Defence. He is an amiable, simple-minded, garrulous Scotchman, something in the grain trade, who has made a competence by careful, steady, hard work. He continues in his good old pimple way— rising every morning at o and milking his own two cows regularly, just as he has done these 40 years. There was an amusing episode at the Irish Literary Society's lecture in London recently between Mr. Charles Russell and his father, tho Lord Chief Justice. The former lectured on Curran, and lecture 1 very well. Then the latter criticised, and regretted that the lecturer had not given more samples of Curran's wit, an omission which he partly supplied. He related, amongst others, the retort so often ascribed to Curran of a certain judge who declared that if the law was as counsel had laid it down, he would go home and burn all his books, and the well known retort — ' You had better go home and read them. 1 It was not till Mr. Russell's response to a vote of thanks that he gave his reason for not relating that anecdote. The real author of the retort, he explained was Serjeant Dunning in reply to Lord Mansfield, and not Currau at all. A delicious story of an interview between President Kruger and the Duke of Abercorn should not be unrecorded, inasmuch as the accuracy of the story can be vouched for on the authority of a Minister of the Crown. Conversation was carried on by an interpreter. • Toll the President.' said the Duke, ' that I am the Duke of Abercorn.' Krugrr nodded his knowledge of the fact. 'Tell him lam chairman of the South African Chartered Company.' An assenting nod from the President apprised his Grace that his ' Honor ' was aware of that interesting connection. ' Tell him,' said the Duke, ■ that mv father was the Viceroy of Ireland, the representative of her Her Most Gracious MRJesty in that country.' At length the President grew communicative. ' Tell him,' said President Kruger, ■ that my father was a shepherd."