People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 38, 20 September 1900, Page 10

People We Hear About

Tuesday, July 24, was the I.loth anniversary of the birth of the famous Irish orator, patriot, and humorist, John Philpot Curran. It is as a humorist that Curran is best remembered by the general public, but among Irish Nationalists his name and memory are regarded with great reverpnee and honor for his fearleas defence of the Irish insurgents ol 17UK. The Prc*s Gallery of the TTon«p nf rommona has sent out many an Irish journalist to figure brilliantly on the world's stage. To the already famous list must be added the name of Hon. Nicholas Flood Davin, Q C., now leading the Conservative Opposition in the Canadian Parliament. Mr. Davin was born in Limerick 55 years ago, and by dint of hard work and sheer intellect graduated from the reportership of an humble paper to his present position. Irish names are quite common in Cuba. O'Reilly street is one of the principal thoroughfares of Havana, and a family of that name has been illustrious in Cuba for over a century. Its most prominent representative at present is the Countess O'Reilly. The famous ' Morro,' guarding the entrance to Havana harbor, has been referred to as ' The O'Donnell's castle,' because of that name being inscribed upon it. Mr. Justice Mathew, the Senior Judge of the English Queen's Bench Division, attained his seventieth year on Tuesday, July 16. Mr Justice Mathew waa born at Bordeaux, the eldest son of Mr. Charles Mathew, of Lehenogh House, Cork. He was educated at Trinity College, and one of the first of the big cases in which he was engagal after being called to the Bar was the Tichborne trial, in which he was junior counsel for the Crown. His daughter is the wife of Mr. John Dillon, M.P. Rev. Nicholas Ward, of St. Joseph's Monastery, Baltimore, is the inventor of a new system of stenography, which he has named the new American stenography. Father Ward is a distinguished linguist ; it is said he can speak nearly every known language. He is now much interested in the preparation of a series of interchangeable grammars which would enable the student to learn quickly the differences between the various languages. Father Ward was born in Dublin in 1856, and went to the United States when 10 years old. He joined the Congregation of Paasionists in the .seventies. It is pretty generally known (says the Daily Chronicle') that the successful Parliamentary practitioner, Mr. Seymour Bushe, Q.C., intends to join the English Bar nexi 'call' day. During the present Parliamentary cession the services of Mr. Bushe have been in great demand before the committees. He is a very Bkilful crossexamim r and the master of a ready wit which, as in the case of OConn-11 and many another Iri«h lawyer before and since, has served its possessor mo^t effectually, even where sound law would be unavailing. A colleague who was also a bit of a punster once dubbed the Q.C. 'Mr. Baymore Bosh' — but the gibe waa shortlived Hignor Verdi, the great Catholic Italian composer, has almost brought to coni| letion the philanthropic scheme on which he has been enmgul since 18S8. Outs de the Porta Magenta at Milan he has bought a piece of uround. and on it has built a house of rest for musician*. This building which wa.s begun in 1896, covers an area of more than 2<KJO square yards. It will shelter 100 needy musi- ( urns (<;o men and 10 women) of nor, less thau <>5 years of age. The facade, in medieval style, will bear the portraits of eight great Itihan musicians— Pule^trina, Scarlatti, Frescobaldi, Monteverde, Marcello. Per_'ole*i. Cinnroia, and Hos*ini. In the largest courtyard will be placed Verdi s bust, and after his death, when the home will be ded ica' ed , his ashes will be placed in a Carrara marble monument in the cry pi,. Courtfield, the seat of the Catholic Vaughan family, is a spacious though very plain looking mansion near Ross, Herefordshire. Its situation is very pi'-turepque, and the grounds are extensive. The family is one of the comparatively few which still enjoy the privilege of having a private chapel in the house, a privilege very aelriom granted now by the Holy See. The lord of the manor ia Colonel Vaughin. the Cardinal's younger brother. Not quite 20 miles from Couri field, at Gien Trotby, near Abergavenny, lives another brother, Reginald. These are the only two sons of the late Colonel Vaughan who did not enter the Church. The six others who did were Cardinal Herbert Vaughan ; Jerome, the Benedictine monk ; Bede, archbishop of Sydney ; Bernard, the Jesuit ; John, a domestic prelate to the Pope ; and Kenelm, a secular priest, now in one of the South American republics. An Irish visitor to the Paris Exposition entered a hotel in the Rue Coutaincourt, and was getting purple in the face from desperate vain efforts to make himnelf intelligible to the garcons that stood around with their shoulders tittivated to their ears. Suddenly a gorgeous h<>ad-waiter emerged from the salon, and seeing the commotion cried, ' Yerra, what's up?' Explanations followed. 'J he head waiter waa ' Danny ' Mannion. He hailed from Ballyaghadereen, Mayo.