People We Hear About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 15, 12 April 1900, Page 30

People We Hear About.

The Rev. Guiseppe Zerega died about the end of January in hia native village of Recco, near Genoa, aged 101 years. He celebrated Mass regularly up to tbe Sunday preceding his death.

The marriage between the Hon. Frank Russell, son of the Lord Chief Justice, and Miss Mary Ritchie, daughter of the Right Hon. C. T. Ritchie, M P., took place on Saturday, February 17th, at the Oratory. Brompton, London.

Pepito Rodriguez Arriole is a three-year-old Spanish pianist who is astonishing Madrid audiences. Be is said to play correctly and with feeling and to bo already composing. He beats Mozart's record as an infant prodigy by three years. His father was a Spanish officer who was killed last year in Cuba.

Mrs. Edith Dickenson, who has gone to Natal with the South Australian nurses as lady correspondent for the Advertiser, is the wife of a doctor practising at MaitlaDd. She has several relatives in the army, and two of her sons were with General White at Ladysmith. Mrs. Dickenaon has travelled very largely, and she has written most interesting accounts of what she has seen in f oreign countries.

Among the many touching incidents of Raskin's life (says the Axe Maria) is his meeting with the beggar in Rome. He had dreamed the night before that he himself was a Franciscan friar ; and, the spirit of his dream still possessing him, he kissed the beggar's cheek as he gave bis customary alms. Moved by that sadden impulse, the poor man afterward sought his kind patron, and, with tears in his eyes, begged him to accept the most precious thing which he oould give — a bit of the brown robe of St. Francis — a relic which no misery or need had ever before drawn from him. From that meeting came the great art critic's visit to Assisi and its influence upon his after life.

Mr. F. P. Dunne, the faithful reporter of the conversations of Mr. Dooley with his friend Hennessy, ia a relative of Archbishop Riordan, of San Francisco, and a nephew of Very Rev. Dr. Dunne, former Vicar-General of Chicago. Mr. Dunne must be a near relative of Mr. Dooley also, as he has the exclusive right — granted by the Philosopher himself — to report his observations on men and things, in which an intelligent and discriminating public are so greatly interested. Said public owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Donne for not permitting Mr. Dooley's wisdom to ' blush unseen and waste its fragrance on the desert air.'

An Irish paper states that Lady Roberts and her daughters will join Lord Roberts at Capetown if his stay there is likely to be at all protracted. For the present, Lord Mount-Stephen has lent them hia London residence. Lady Roberts and Lady Wantage are the only two peeresses who have the honor of possessing the Royal Red Cross. During the last Irish manoeuvres Lady Roberts was a prominent figure in the field, and followed the movements of the troops with the interest and eagerness of a military attache. She was invariably in the midst of the fray ; and on one occasion, perched on a ditch, she is said to have been quite carried away with enthusiasm at a smart capture effected by a trooper of the Inniskilling Dragoons.

Mr. Ernest Maginnity, son of the late Mr. John Maginnity, Wellington, and Mr. S. Richardson, son of the Hon. E. Richardson, M.L.C., CM G., are at present troopers in Brabant's Light Horse, in South Africa.

The big London newspapers are not above making a mistake now and again. The Times allowed one of its correspondents to describe the Hon. Hugh Gourlay as ' Premier of New Zealand ' ; the Graphic spoke of ' Colonel Ricardo, of the New Zealand Mounted Infantry ' ; and the Illustrated London News published a picture of Sir Henry Wylie Norman, with an incomprehensible obituary notice, at a time when the ex-Governor of Jamaica and Qneensland was taking a keen interest in the organisation of the Australian Bushmen's Contingent.

Mr. J. C. Martin, Public Trustee, has been appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of the Colony. The new Judge was born in England, but received the greater part of his education in Christchurch. After leaving college he studied law, and having passed as barrister and solicitor he joined a well known firm of lawyers, the Benior partner of which was then Crown Prosecutor in Canterbury. After practising euccessf ully in Christchurch for a number of years he was appointed Resident Masistrate in Wellington, where his conduct of the business of the Court, was marked by much ability. His decisions were rarely appealed from, and when they were the judgment of the higher courts was generally in the direction of confirming the the soundness of his legal knowledge. A few years ago Mr. Martin accepted the position of Public Trustee, where his legal training and business acumen were of considerable advantage to him in discharging the duties of his new post. Mr. Martin returned a few months since from a well-deserved holiday in England and the Continent.

The death is annonnoed of the celebrated war correspondent, Archibald Forbes. Mr. Forbes was born in 1838 in Morayshire, Scotland. He studied at the University of Aberdeen, and Berved for several years in the Royal Dragoons. He accompanied the German army in the Franco-German war as correspondent of the Daily News. Later, in the same capacity, he witnessed the close of the Commune, visited India during the famine of 1874, saw fighting in Spain, at one time with the Carlist?, at another with the Republicans, at a third with Alfonsists. In the capacity of representative of the Daily News, he accompanied the Prince of Wales in the tour through India in 1875-76. In the summer and autumn of 1876, he was in Servia. He followed the Russo-Turkißh campaign in the summer and autumn of 1877, attached to the Russian army, and was present at the Crossing of the Danube, the oapture of Bjela, the advance of the Cesarewitch's army towards Rustchuk, tbe disastrous battle of Plevna on July 3, the severest fighting in the Shipka Pass, and the five days* attack by the Russians on Plevna, in September, remaining continuously on the field until attacked by fever in the middle of September. In 1878 he proceeded to Cyprus as special correspondent of the Daily News. In the autumn of the same year he went to India, and in the winter accompanied the Kyber Pass force to Jellalabad, having been present at the attack on and reduction of Ali Musjid, and in several expeditions against the hill tribe?, on one of which expeditions he was mentioned in the General's despatch for attending to the wounded and saving a wounded soldier's life under a close and heavy fire. Afterwards Mr, Forbes lectured on his experiences to large audiences in Great' Britain, America, and Australia.