People We Hear About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 14, 5 April 1900, Page 30

People We Hear About.

Dr. J. J. Grace, F.R.0.5., <-on of the Hon. Dr. Grace, M.L.C., Wellington, ha a been appointed (say-* the Ni ir Zealand Times) plague expert to the Government of Hawaii.

Dr. Pastor, author of the Jli-stor;/ of the Pojhs, has received from Leo XIII a letter praising his work and creating him a Knight of the Order uf St. Sj heater.

The late Mr Justice O'Brien, of Dublin, died worth £3.*j,000, which he leaves to sisters, nephews, and nieces. He leaves his general library to the Jesuits at Milltown Park, near Dublin, hia law books to be sold.

The astonishing sale of the Rev. Father Sheehan's sketch of parochial life in Ireland, which was published at Boston in December last under the title of My Xao Curate, may be gauged from the fact that two editions were exhausted in America before a single copy could be spared for the English market. Father Sheehan is parish priest of Doneraile. County Cork.

Lord Roberts was always very proud of his son's riding powers. At an Irish meeting last year, young Roberts rode clean away from the field and won with a dozen lengths to spare. •My s<m mn-t not be encouraged to ride ; a soldier has to kcey all hi-, abilities for the Service,' said Lord Roberts : then, with a burst of paternal pride, ' but, in all my life, I never saw anyone ride a better race. 1

Lord Camoya, who celebrated his birthday recently, is one of the old aristocracy, going back to the first baron of that name who commanded the left wing at Agincourt in 1415, and was made a Knight of the Garter. The Barony was, however, in abeyance for rather more than four centuries, from 1426 until 1839. He is one of the most popular members of the Catholic nobility.

Michael Mooney who lives at the home of the Little Sisters of the Poor, New York, is by far the healthiest and strongest of America's centenarians. He was born on Easter morning, 175)2, in the town of Granwith, County of Longford, Ireland. 'My family were active participants in the rebellion of 1798,' he says, ' and my father and two brothers fought gallantly all through the uprising, under Lord Edward Fitzgerald.'

The numerous friends of Mr. Juptin McCarthy, M.P. (says the Catholic Herald. February 1(5), will be gratified at the intelligence that, although unable as yet to leave his home at Westgate, he ia slowly regaining his strength. While his indifferent eyesight is somewhat of a disability, Mr. McCarthy is now able not only to read the papers, but is strong enough to make some progress daily towards the completion of his History of the Four Giortjis.

Mr. John Redmond, M.P., who has b^en unanimously elected sessional chairman of the reunited Irish Nationalist Party (says the Daily Xncs) is only forty-four years of a^e. He had the good fortune to enter Parliament when he was twenty-five, so that he may almost be said to have pa^ed his life in the House of Commons. As a Parliamentary speaker he stands in the very highest rank. Thrre are few men in the Hou=e who come near him in point ot dignified eloquence, and no man understands better the way in which that peculiar assembly should be addressed.

The last three Chief Justices of Victoria— Sir W. Foster Stawell, Mr. George Higinbotham, and Sir John Madden— all claimed Irish parentage.

The late Vicar-General of his Holiness Leo. Xlll.— Cardinal Domenico Jacobini— whilst one of the most popular members of the, Sacred College, owed his exalted position to himself and to his talents alone, for he was born of poor and humble parents, his father being a janitor. Succeeding, noL without difficulty, in entering the Roman Seminary, the young man made marvellous progress, and as soon as he was ordained priest was offered and accepted the ohair of Greek in the same seminary where he had been a pupil. When Pope Leo XIII. wa9 born, his father, Count Ludovico Pecci, presented him to numbers of the Carpineto peasants who were assembled, according to oustom, in one of the saloons of the Pecci palace. They welcomed the child with loud cries, and shepherds with flutes and pipes announced the news of his birth far and wide. The rector of the Jesuit College at Viterbo, where the future Pope and his brother were educated, wrote to their mother : 'So excellent are the two boya you have intrusted to me that I anticipate a great future for them.'

Mr. T. P. Gil], a former Irish Nationalist member of the House of Commons, has been appointed secretary of the new Board of Agriculture and Industries in Ireland. Mr. Gill, who went out of politics in 1892, was associated with Mr Horace Plunkett in the work of the famous ' Recess Committee,' which was formed to gather and formulate information as to the economic resources of Ireland and the manner in which they could be utilised. Colonel Saunderson, on behalf of the Irish Unionist members, has, it is stated, written to the Prime Minister urging the undesirablene3B of the appointment of Mr. Gill.

Viscount Gormanßton, the Governor of Tasmania, who sustained a paralytic stroke on January 26, is now practically all right again. His lordship's peerage dates back to 1478, and his family seat ia at Gormanston Castle, Balbriggan, County Meath. He is now sixtythree years old, and he has enjoyed his title since the death of hia father in 1876. As a lieutenant in the 60th Rifles he served through the Indian Mutiny, and his civil career began when in 1866 he waa appointed chamberlain to the Duke of Abercorn, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Afterwards he was a Commissioner of Irish National Education, and he became Governor of the Leeward Isles in 1885. Thence he went to British Guiana, and in 1893 he was appointed to Tasmania. The inclusion of Dr. Villiers Stanford's ' Irish Symphony ' in the programme of the Halle Band in Dublin recently, suggests to a contemporary the following particulars regarding the distinguished composer :— The well-known Professor of Music at Cambridge Dr. Stanford, was born in Dublin in 1852, where his father an enthusiastic amateur, was Examiner in the Court of Chancery He studied music with Mr. A O'Leary and Sir Robert Stewart! Dr. Stanford, it is interesting to recall, was requested by Tennyson to compose the overture, songs, and entre'actes for ' Queen Mary ' At least three operas—' The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan ' (1881) 'Savonarola' (1*33), and < Shemus O'Brien' are from Professor Stanford's fertile pen. His chamber music is scholarly, and he has acquired much fame as an orchestral conductor. He has composed a sheaf of Irish songs.