People We Hear About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 16, 18 April 1901, Page 10

People We Hear About.

The Baroness Burdett-Coutts was born five years before the late Queen. She is the single example during the reign of a woman commoner being created a baroness. Probably the oldest subject in his Majesty's dominions is an Irishwoman— Mrs. Whelan, of Clongh, in the County Kilkenny, who has attained the marvellous age of 114 years. During the rebellion of 1798 her father, who was a blacksmith, is said to have shod the horse of Myles Byrne, the famous Wioklow rebel leader, for which act cf kindness the poor man -was hanged by the Engliph yeomen, the shaft of a cart aoting in lieu of a scaffold. This aot, which was witnessed by Mrs. Whelan, her mother, and the rest of the family, is still fresh in the mind of the woman of 114 summers. Mrs. Whelan has lived in the reigns of five English Sovereigns. The famous ballad, ' Who fears to speak of '98 V written by Dr. John Kella Ingram, the present Vioe-Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1843, when an undergraduate, has recently been bo much quoted that the history of its inception may be worthy of record. Two class-fellows, one of whom was Dr. Shaw, now a senior Fellow and senior Dean of Trinity College, were spending the evening with Dr. Ingram, who retired at a late hoar, leaving his friends to entertain each other in his sitting-room. The next morning he quietly read them his immortal ballad, which had been composed in the first floor bedroom, next the dining hall of No. 51, Trinity College, Dublin. In connection with the claim of Lord Mowbray Segrave and Stourton to the Earldom of Norfolk, the Duke of Norfolk has presented to the House of Lords a cross-petition praying (1) that he may be permitted to appear before their lordships by his counsel and agents to be heard on the petition of Charles Botolph Joseph, Lord Mowhray, Lord Segrave, and Baron and Lord Stourton of Scourton, presented on February 21 ; and (2) that their lordships will be pleased to signify to the petitioner whether or not their lordships will require him, in the circumstances, to lodge a printed case and to produce evidence of his descent from Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, in 1644 to the present time, in order to prove his title to the Earldom of Norfolk alleged to have been conferred on the said Thomas in 1644. There is one prelate (says the London Tablet) who wears a cope which was the gift of the late Queen. This is the holder of the See of Halifax in Nova Pcotia, Archbishop Corneliuß O'Brien, to whom her majesty made the offering in recognition of the respect paid by him and his clergy to the memory of the Canadian Prime Minister, Sir John Thomson, whose sudden death made a painful impression on her mind. The gift, in any case an appropriate one, was made the more bo on this occasion by the use of fine poplin and other materials all manufactured in Ireland. King Edward's first visit here (writes the Rome correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette') was in lsr>9, when he was only 18 years oKi, and the second and last in 1862, not long before his marriage. On hiß first he was attended by Colonel Bruce, his tutor. Carnival was going on, and a balcony on the Corso was taken for the young heir to the throne, who, however, soon tired of being an onlooker and wished to join the ' madding crowd.' The Roman Princes, Borghese, and Soiarra, now passed away, and Prince Massimo, who is still alive, and then was a young man of 23, undertook to show him the way. ' How gay and unpretentious he was !' Bays Prince Yassitro ; • his bright and heartfelt laugh still echoes in my ears, as we maTUL-uvred our candles in the moccoletto, blowing out those of f ther people, re-lighting our own, and gallantly helping a pretty girl lure and there to protect hers. Prince Albert Edward was the life of the party although he was the youngest of ns all, merely because he enjoyed every moment of the time.' In Lent he threw himself with the same vigor into the church services. When detained in a particularly long audience by the Pope, Pius IX., he exclaimed to him : ' Your Holiness reigns over a magic city, which can turn from the mad, if innocent, fun of Tuesday to the devout penitence of Ash Wednesday. We Northerners could not leave our enjoyments so euddenly.' The new Speaker of the Canadian Senate, Hon. Laurence G. Power, is an Irish Catholic. He is the Bon of the late Patrick Power, merchant, of Halifax, NS. Hon. Mr. Power was born in Halifax in Ibtl and wab educated at St Mary's College, Halifax, Carlow College, the Catholic University, Ireland, and Harvard Law School, taking the degree of L.L.B. at the latter in 1866. He was called to the Bar of Nova Scotia in 1866, and the following year was appointed clerk of the House of Assembly of his province, and held the position until he was called to the Senate. He was elected to the City Council of Halifax, and was also for some 13 years a member of the City School Board. In February, 1877, he was called to the Senate, during the reign of the Mackenzie Government. The appointment caused some surprise at the time, not because Mr. Power was not in every way qualified for the position, but because the appointments to the Senate had usually been made from gentlemen who had previously been more advanced in years. Mr. Power was not yet 3(5 years old at the time he was appointed. For two sessions following, there was the unique sight of father and son going to Ottawa to represent the same constituency, the son in the Senate and the father in the Lower House. A quiet, studious man, Senator Power has occasionally given the public some minor contributions to the literature of his time. In the Senate he was a dignified snd apparently judioial-minded debater, and ho should make a satisfactory Speaker.