People We hear About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 52, 27 December 1900, Page 6

People We hear About.

Mr. Stanhope Forbes, A.R.A., the celebrated fishing village painter, is an Irishman. It is Btated that the late Lord Bute's possessions are roughly set down at five millions sterling. A large sum will fall to the Exchequer in the form of death duties. The Hun. Arthur Ru^nell, eldest boa of Llie late Lord Chief Justice of England, has been appointed Judge of County Court, circuit number 52, liuldiiig courts iv Bulk and elsewhere iv Soiiieiset and Wilts. The judgeship was rendered vacant by the recent death of his Honor Judge Gardiner. Lady Mary Keppel, who was married a few weeks ago at the London Oratory, and her two sisters, Lady Hilda and Lady Florence Keppel are Catholics ; but not so her brothers, the Earl of Albemarie, who gave her away, and the Hon. Derek Keppel, at whose house the wedding breakfast was held. Their father, the late Earl of Abermarle, became a Catholic when, as Lord Bury, he held a post in Lord Beaconsfield's administration. Among those who have been elected to the freedom of w tb.e City of Dublin are the following : — Mr. Isaac Butt (first freeman), the Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone, General Grant, Captain Potter, Mr. Parnell, Mr. Dillon, Dr. O'Doherty (of Queensland), Senator Patrick Oollinc, Mr. William O'Brien, the Marquis of Ripon, Mr. John Morley, Cardinal Moran, Mr. T. D. Sullivan, Mr. Sexton, Mr. James Stansfield, Rev. Dr, Salmon, and Sir Stewart Knill (Lord Mayor of London). There is one lady freeman — Lady Sandhurst. The Earl of Shannon arrived in Kinsale (Cork County) lately to join his yacht Naotia, when he was told one of the crew of the yacht, John O'Brien, had been drowned, while going on board, leaving a large and helpless young family. Lord Shannon called on Rev. L. Cummins. After a short interview Lord Shannon promised to allow O'Brien's wife and family 109 per week for two years, and appointed Father Cummins trustee. Lord Shannon paid all debts and demands connected with the deceased's death and funeral. Earl Shannon lives in Castlemartyr. Swift (nays an exchange) was . r >9 when bis brain pave birth to Gulliver* Travih. Sir Walter Scott was 44 when his Waverley made its appearance, and nearly all those stories which have conferred lasting fame upon him were composed after the age of 4G. Milton's mind rose to its highest capacity when the blind poet was between 54 and ~>'.h It was at this period of his existence when he offered to the world Paradnr Lost, Cowper had turned the half century when he wrote The Task and John (filpin ■ and De Foe was within two year« of (50 when he published Ilohinson Cruxnc. Thomas Hood's The Somi of the Shut and The Bridge of Sight were Written when ho was 4ti Longfellow wrote Ihawuiha at 4>S ; and Oliver Wendell Holmes gave us Songs in Many Key* when he had passed his fifty-fifth birthday. George Eliot was near her fiftieth year when she wrote Middle march, and thia was succeeded by Daniel Deronda, Bacon's greatest work took f>9 years to mature, and Grote's Ihxtory of Greece some years longer. A girl belonging to a Sussex village (says M.A.P.) was entering the service of a lady living at Arundel. Arriving at the railway ■tation, she engaged an outside porter to carry her box, and having gone a short dintance, uhe mentioned she could not give him more than threepence, as the box was quite small. Thereupon, after the manner of so many of his kind, he set it down in the road and walked off. A homely-looking man, wearing a coat green with age, chanced to overtake her. In spite of old clothes, he looked very respectable, ehe thought, and, thinking he might be glad of a fewpence, she offered him the job. He picked up the little box and walked with her, but on reaching the destination he set it down on the doorßtep, and hurried away without waiting to be paid. She mentioned the fact to her mistress, and from her description of the man, the lady's amused suspicions were aroused, but she said nothing until a few days later, when the Duke of Norfolk happened to pass the house. ' That's the man that carried my box,' the girl ■aid promptly, about to rn9h out forthwith and pay him, for the Duke was wearing the identical green garment. Her confusion may be imagined on hearing that the erstwhile porter was the first peer of England. Mr. Justin M'Carthy (says the Daily Chronicle), almost simultaneously with his retirement from public life, has been the recipient of a private presentation, in the form of a substantial annuity settled upon him for life. What makes the testimonial the more gratifying is that it was set on foot and carried through almost entirely by men with whom Mr. M'Carthy had no association in politics, the owner of a Conservative paper being the first contributor with the sum of 500 guineas. Mr. M'Carthy was born in 1830, the eldest son of the late Mr Michael Francis M'Carthy. He was educated privately, for in the days of his youth no Catholic might receive any academic degree. At the age of 18 he became a journalist in Cork, and four years later removed to Liverpool, where he was similarly engaged until 1860, when he came to London. As the editor of the old Morning Star from 1864 to 1868, and as a leader writer on the Daily News after 1870, Mr M'Carthy did much to form sound public opinion on many subjects, but particularly on that of Irish National aspirations. He first entered Parliament as member for Longford County in 1879, afterwards representing Derry City, and, since 1892, North Longford. From 1890 to 1890 lie was chairman of the Irish Parliamentary Party, a position which circumstances forced upon him, but which he found irksome and uncongenial. He has eroelled in widely diverse ways ; his novels would suffice for one man's reputation, while his History of Our Own Time is universally accepted as a scholarly and judicial work, which bears no trace of the political bias which people would be only to ready to detect in the writing of an Irish Nationalist.