People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 46, 17 November 1904, Page 10

People We Hear About

Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican candidate, has been re-elected President of the United States. President and Mrs. Roosevelt recently entertained Mr. and Mrs. John Redmond and President Wheeler, of the University of California, at luncheon. The religious rancor, observes the ' Tablet,' which of old Hanged the Catholics on any pretext, taies still the folia ol a campaign against a Catholic oiliual like Sir Antony MacDonneli, and its weapons are those of a concerted series ot innuendoes in Parliament and in the press. The halter was at least the more honest instrument of the two. Captain lan and Lady Helen Forbes (says the Glasgow ' Catholic Herald ') have taken up their residence in the grand old embattled and picturesquely situated edifice, Herbertshire Castle, on the Carron, near Demny, wiuelf has been prepared as a living abode again, after standing empty for a good many years. Captain lan Forbes, who is quite young yet, is the eldest son of Colonel Forbes, laird of Rothiemay, Banffshire, and a second cousin of the present Mr. Forbes of Callendar. Attached to the Gordon Highlanders during the South Alucan war, Captain Forbes was with his regiment thiough the siege of Ladysnnlh. lie is now Adjutant of the Ist Lanark Volunteers, Glasgow. As for Lady Helen, she is a daughter of the third Earl of Craven, and is well known as a novelist and writer. Monsieur Paul Canibon, the French Ambass-ador in London, has been paying a series of visits in Scotland, and was lately the guest of Sir Hubert Jerningham at Longndge Towers, his beautiful place in Berwickshire. Sir Hubert, who is one of the! few English Catholics who have represented British constituencies iv Pailiament (having sat for Berwick-upon-Tweed front 1881 to 1885), is a Bachelor of the University of France, and a distinguished scholar who has published several interesting books, including a history of Norham Castle. Noiiiam is close to Longfidge Towers, which was left to Sir Hubert for lite by his wife, who had inherited it from Mr. Chailes Mather, her first husband. Sir Hubert has done much good service as a Colonial Governor, his last appointment having been to the Governorship of Trinidad, which for some reason or other appeals to be usually given to a Catholic. Sir Thomas Grattan Esmonde, Bart , the Chief Whip of the Irish Parliamentary Party, who is 42, ought, by nil the laws of "heredity, to be Lord Esmonde, Baron of Limerick. That he is not is the result of a strange combination ot romance and religion. His ancestor, the first and last Lord Esmcvnde, was Majorgeneral cf James I.'s forces in Ireland, and in one of his, expeditions into Connauglit he fell in fove with the daughter of the chief of the O'Flahertys and wedded her. Lord Esmonde became a Protestant, and his wife, a devout Catholic, fearing that their son Thomas might be brought up in his father's new religion, fled with him into Connaught. Her husband considered his wife's act as a dissolution of the marriage, and wedded again. His son Thomas took the opposite side to his father in the civil wai, and became. Major-general of the army of mc Catholic Confederation. He was made a baronet in -lu^S, and that is the Daronctcy which Sir 1 nomas now enjoys, the eleventh of the line. 'Ihouch the first Sir Thomas Esmonde did not inherit his father's title, he did inherit his goodly estates. Mr. R. J. M'Hugh, is at present with General Kuioki's army as war correspondent for the ' Daily Telegraph,' London. As his despatches indicate, Mr. iVriiup.h is a brilliant writer, and as he is captain of a London volunteer corps, he is eminently qualified for me position which he now occupies. It is needless to say that Mr. M'Hugh is an Irishman. lie is a native of New town^tewart, County Tyrone, and spent the early part ot his journalistic career on a Londonderry pap2r, the ' Deiry Journal.' Afterwards he went to "uhe ' Freeman's Journal,' and was employed i*ni the London office of that paper until an opening offered on the ' Daily Telegraph. On the outbreak cf the war between America and Spam, Mr. M'Hugh was sent to Cuba to represent that journal. After a time he was attacked by sickness, and had to return to London. His next sphere of duty in the war correspondent line was South Africa,, ana he had the fortoine, or misfortune, of being in juadysnnth during the famous siege of that place. 'me present war is by iar the biggest conflict of arms with which he has been connected, and although there has not been much opportunity for getting vivid accounts of ,lhe hghUfig so far, Mr. M'Hugh has Succeeded remarkably wen, and will doubtless do even better as new features develop.

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