People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 6, 5 February 1903, Page 10

People We Hear About

Mme. Sarah Bernhardt celebrated her 61st birthday recently at Christiana (Norway). The estate of the late Right Rev. William Vaughan, uncle of Cardinal Vaughan and Catholic Bishop of the diocese of Plymouth from 1855 to 1902, has been declared at £154. The ' Semaine Religieuse/ of Autun, announces that m response to its appeal for Cardinal Perraud, whose stipend was suppressed by M. Combes, a sum sufficient to cover a Joss of salary for the next three years was at once subscribed. Amontrst the recipients of the silver medals of the Royal Society of Arts, presented at the opening meeting of the 1902-3 session by the president (Sir William Preece), was the name of Father Thurston, S.J. The medal was conferred for a paper read before the Society on ' The History of the Rosary in all Countries.' Porfirio Diaz, who has been President of Mexico since 1877, will be succeeded this year by Jose Yves Limantour, the present Financial Minister. The latter is a gentleman of culture and wealth, to which he has largely added by skilful business management. He has no taste for political life, and when the call came to him to accept the post of Secretary of Finance he was reluctant to do so, and only yielded from a high sense of patriotic duty. During the recent coal strike Mark Twain (says the ' Morning Post ') sent the following letter to the Treasury at Washington : — ' Honorable the Secretary of the Treasury, Washington. Sir, — Prices for the customary kin-ds of winter fuel having reached an altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary persons in sjtraitened circumstances 1 , I desire to place with you the following order: Forty-five tons best old dry ' Government bonds suitable for furnace, gold 7 per cent. 1864 preferred ; twelve tons early greenbacks, range size, suitable" for cooking ; eight barrels seasoned 25 and 50 per cent, postal currency, vintage of 1866, eligible for kindlings. Please deliver with all convenient despatch at my house in Riverdale at lowest rates for spot cash, and send bill to your obliged servant, Mark Twain, who will be very grateful and will vote right.' The New South Wales Minister of Works is entirely a self-made man. Mr. O'Sullivan is a native of Bathurst, where his father was a bootmaker in a small way. At an early age he was apprenticed to the printing trade, and he worked at the case in Tasmania, Victoria, and Sydney. He was first overseer of the Sydney ' Daily Telegraph.' He took an active part in labor movements. He contested his first election at Sydney, and was so poor at the time that he had to do his own bill-sticking, and he conducted his meetings without the aid of a chairman. He was defeated, but soon afterwards he discovered a country constituency — Queanbeyan — which he has represented ever since. He is one of the best-read men in Australia. On Saturday, November 22, Mr. Justin McCarthy celebrated his 72nd birthday. He was a member of the Young Ireland Party when he started his newspaper career in Cork in 1848. Of that brilliant band of Young Irishmen only two of the more prominent survive. Its founder, Sir Gavan Duffy, is still comparatively hale and hearty at 86, and so is Dr. Kevin O'Dohcrty, who, as a young medical student, was three times tried for high treason. Sir Gavan Duffy was tried no fewer than four times for the same offence without the Crown being able to get a verdict. Felony cases are invariably tried by a common jury, but for the fourth trial of the Queen v. Duffy special jurors alone were summoned. Every name was taken from a list composed, according to statute of ' the sons of peers, baronets and knights, squires, bankers, merchants, and traders worth £5000 !' But public opinion was too strong. The jury disagreed, and Mr. Duffy, as he then was, was released on bail, to onter the House of Commons, and soon afterwards to win for himself fame and fortune in Australia.