People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 16, 16 April 1903, Page 10

People We Hear About

London Catholics, headed by the Editor of ' Punch,' are moving to have published a centenary edition of Cardinal Wiseman's voluminous works. Sir F. Burnand, writing in support of the scheme, admits that some of the volumes, especially on scientific subjects, may be considered out of date, but he is anxious to see a careful if not complete edition, to include the six volumes of essays.

A Paris message states that on Saturday, February 21, Miss Maud Gonne, who was, a few days before, received into the Catholic Church, was married to Major Mcßride, one of the officers of the Irish Brigade on the Boer side in the South African war. The ceremony took place in the Chapel of St. Honore d'Eylan. There were only about 20 persons present— relations of the bride and bridegroom, witnesses, and a few friends. The place and hour fixed for the marriage were kept secret.

General Sir William Butler, who triumphantly completed his rehabilitation by the evidence which he gave before the War Commission the other day, went out to Africa in November, 1898, to take up duty as General Officer Commanding. During Sir Alfred Milner's absence on leave in December, 1898, and until the middle of February, he also acted as High Commissioner and Governor of Cape Colony. Because he foresaw the grave nature of the struggle then impending, and warned the Government, he was encouraged to resign his command, and was bioadly accused, by Loid Heneage, among others, of something between incompetence, cowardice, and treason. Events tragically justified his forebodings, and the Government made some amends for the distrust with which his warnings were regarded by giving him the command of the Western District. Sir William is the husband of Lady Butler, the painter of the ' Roll Call,' and is, of course, a Catholic.

The Abbe Perosi, the young priestr-composer whose new opera ' Leo ' was to be performed at the Vatican in connection with the close of the Pope's Jubilee, is one of the popular figures in Rome, where he lives in a modest apartment in the Palazzo Gabrielli. But, though visir tors flock to see him, Perosi is the simplest and most unassuming of men, to whom, as he has confessed, no pleasure is so great as to go to his little house in Tuscany, ' and there, among the trees, the sun, and the flowers, gain inspiration and take care of my garden.' The story is told to the traveller in Sicily how once a stranger entered a cathedral and began examining the organ, which he begged to be allowed to try. It was a fine organ, which not even the organist understood, and when, with some leluctance the organist allowed the stranger' to play, the cathedral was filled with sounds that its walls had ne^ er heard before. As the stranger played, pulling out stops never before combined, and working slowly up to the full organ, the cathedral filled, and it was not until a \ast congregation had wondered at his gift that the stranger told his name. He. was Uom Lorenzo Perosi.

The Hon. Charles Dormer, R.N., Commander of TT M S Victory, who was married recently in London to Miss Mary Clifford, is the brother of Lord Dormer, who succeeded his uncle in the title. Their father was the late Lieutenant-General Sir James Dormer, who was killed by a tiger while Commander-in-Chief in Madras. Their grandmother was a daughter of Sir Henry J. Tu-hl ome, so they are cousins of the baronet whose predecessor's disappearance at sea led to the famous trials. The Dormers are a very old Catholic family, and have been associated with Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire since the time of Henry VI IT., and in 1616 Sir Robert of that name was ennobled by James I. Lord Dormer's uncle, the late peer, who died in December, 1900, served in the Crimea. lie was three times married, but his only son died in infancy. It was of his ancestor, the second baron, that Pepys relates that he described timber as 'an exciescence growing upon the face of the earth for the purposes of enabling a gentleman to pay his debts.'

Hon. John P Mitchel, the son of the Irish patriot and comrade of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy in the '48 movement, who is mentioned as one of the prominent speakers at the rrcent Irish meeting at Orange, New Jersey, and which was addressed by Mr. Jos. Devlin, recalls American memoirs of his father whilo a resident of the United States After John Mitchel's escape from Van Pieman's Land, in the July of 1853, he landed in San Fiancisco on the following 12th of October. Proceedto New York, he published in the following spring his well-known ' Jail Journal.' While here he edited his paper, 'The Citizen,' which, after a year or so, failed, owing, it is said, to the strong independence of its editor on questions then of weighty import to the nation. During, and previous to, the Civil War of 1861-65 he resided in San Francisco The genius of Calhoun and other opponents ot Southern States' rights influenced him in thi owing in his lot with the Confederate States. In this he may be said to be joined by many nobleminded men, e\en from the North, who failed to see eye-to-eye on the negro question with Lincoln and his friends After the war he again produced in New York his ' Irish Citi/en,' which he conducted until his election for Tipperaiy, in 1874, recalled him home, only to die.