People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 42, 15 October 1903, Page 10

People We Hear About

Six years ago the late Pope Leo XJUJE charged Count Soderini with the task of writing a history of his Pontificate. While entire freedom of judgment was left to the Count numberless documents, hitherto wholly secret, were placed at the writer's disposal, and in addition much material was dictated by the Pope in explanation of his acts. Mr. F. Marion Crawford is acting in collaboration with Count Soderini in the preparation of the Anglo-American edition. Lord Herries is Lord-Lieutenant bath of Kircudbrightshire and of the East Riding, and is greatly respected on both sades of the border. He is married to a younger sister of the Marchioness of Bute and of the Countess of Loudoun, and has two daughters, the elder of whom, the Hon. Gwendolen Maxwell, is heiress-pre-sumptive to her father's Scottish barony and to the entailed estates both in England and in Scotland. The neighborhood of Everingham, Lord Herries' Yorkshire home, is one of the most Catholic districts in England, the Faith never having died out there. Attached to the Hall is a large and beautiful Catholic church of pure classical style, built by the late Lord Herries some 60 years ago. The death is announced from Switzerland of Mr. J. Carew, M.P. for South Meath. Mr. Carew was proprietor of the ' Lemster Leader ' newspaper, and in later tomes he had also a good deal to say to the Dublin ' Independent.' Entering Parliament in 1885 as member for North Kildare, he sat for that division up to the time of the Parnellite split. In 1896 he was returned for the College Green Division of Dublin. In 1900 he became member for South Meath under circumstances which are still remembered. Mr. Carew was a man of aristocratic tendencies and aspirations, and like many other men who at one period of their career expressed very extreme opinions, he became in later life anything but an extremist. He died a comparatively young man, being but 50 years of age. Apoplexy was the cause of death. That the Hon. Edward Blake, M.P., should have had to retire through ill-health from the position of Chief Advocate of the Canadian Government before the Alaskan Boundary Commission will cause general regret. He has been hard at work in recent months, while attending to his Parliamentary duties, in preparing the case of the Dominion government, and rt was understood that he had completed it. As a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of Canada, nobody was better fitted to prepare the Dominion's case in this important international controversy. Mr. Blake, between the Dominion and the Imperial Parliaments, has seen thirty-six yejus of Parliamentary life. Besides' holding high office m the Dominion Government, he had been Prime Minister of Ontario. Eleven years ago he gave over the leadership of the Canadian Liberals to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and threw in his lot with the Irish Nationalist Party, becoming member for South Longford. His services as an Irish Member are highly and gratefully appreciated by his colleagues. He belongs to the branch of the great Blake family of Galway and Mayo, to which Lord Wallscourt also belongs. It was a brother of his direct ancestor who was a speaker of the Supreme Council of the Confederation of Kilkenny in 1648. Perhaps no novelist has introduced Italy with all its loveliness so well to the reading public as Marion Crawford. Mr. Crawford's father was a native of Ballyshannon. County Donegal, and went to America as a yoiung man. He had a strong artistic bent and designed some handsome maxble mantels ; this led to his going to Rome as a pupil of Thorwaldsen. The novelist was born in that fine old city forty-nine years ago on the 2nd August. When twelve he was sent to America, and went to Paul's School, Concord. Then to England and Trinity, Cambridge. This was followed by student days at Karlsruhe and Heidelberg, finishing with two years at th|e University of Rome, where he had a tutor who taught him Sanscrit. His first appointment was as editor of the ' Allahabad Indian Herald.' Here he picked up a little about Buddhism, and at Simla met the original of 'Mr. Isaacs,' a real man, whose name .was Jacobs. In 1880 Mr. Marion Crawford returned to Italy without means of work, so he went back to America in 1881. There he entered Harvard as a special student, taking a course of Sanscrit. Dining at a club, he told his recollections of an interesting man he met in Simla. His uncle advised him to write it out ; he did so, and thus appeared ' Mr. Isaacs,' which was ot once accepted by Messrs. Macmillan. Then followed a seTies ol delightful Italian stories, commencing with ' The Roman Singer.' Since that day he has never looked back, and success has met him everywhere. He is one of the best living authorities on Rome past and present.