People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 12, 23 March 1905, Page 10

People We Hear About

Few members of the peerage have had a more eventfUH career than Lord Mount-Stephen, who has later ly given £200,000 to the King's Hospital Fund. He was once a herd-boy in BanfPsnire, and lihen a draper's apprentice in Aberdeen. 'Emigrating to Canada, he made a large fortune out of the Canadian Pacific Railway, i n the building of which he was associated with his cousin, Dcnald Smith. Smith is now Lord Strathcona, High Commissioner for Canada. Both Peers are childless. Many years ago, however, Lord Mount-Stephen and his first" wife adopted a little girl, and soon after they went to England. Miss Alice Stepnen married Mr. Henry Stafford Northcote. In 1887 Mr. Northcote was created a baronet, and in 1900 he became Lord Northcote. Tn Sir John Robinson's ' Fifty Years of Fleet Street' he tells hlow Sir Arthur Sullivan offered to sell outright the s'c ng ' The Lost Chord ' for 250 dollars, ' but, fortunately for him, his offer was declined, and he retained tihe copyright, out of which he got a very large sum from first to last. One curious thing he mentioned with regard to the song. There is an absurd blundei in it. The vflords are, " I struck one chord of music like the sound of a great Amen." Now, Amen is a word of two syllables, s>o that there must have been two chords. He did not notice this, he said, until after the song had been sung in public, and he was terribly afraid he would get laughed at for it. Strange to say, nobody ever seemed to have found it out. 1 A few weeks ago (says the ' Catholic Herald ') we referred to an ' interesting event ' which is said Jto be expected shortly in the Norfolk family. A writer in tihe ' Freeman's Journal ' the other day gives some detailed particulars regarding the matter. Should a hoy be born, the Du'kie of Norfolk will then have a direct heir. Should tihe child be a girl Lord Edmund Talbot, the Duke's brother, wiN remain heir presumptive. Lord Edmund bears the name of Talbot under the' will of the last Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury, who made him Jiis heir. English Catholics are much interested in the hopes for a direct heir to the Duke, for at present only two delicate boys, the sons of Lord E. Talbot and of Lord Howard of Glos-sop, stand between the Duke and a Protestant heir. Father Gapon, the leader of the Russian strikers, is an Orthodox clergyman who has had a remarkable career. From his youth he has been conversant with the life of workingmen. The son of a peasant in the Poltava province, he relsolvod to devote himself to the service of the jpoople, and felt that he could best accomplish that purpose by becoming a priest. After his ordination he began the work of endeavoring to improve the lot of the toilers. He formed evening classes for their benefit, joined i n various philanthropic movements, and published a pamphlet on ' The Means of Corn'bating Destitution.' Whilst) chiaplai'n of the Transport Prison he conducted classes amongst the criminals (condemned to penal senvitude. His experience led him to the conclusion that the workmen must be tloscly banded together if they were to l>ccome a real power. Thus is explained the gonesis of the association he has formed. The London ' Tablet,' noting the inclusion of Fathar John Gerard's name in the latest edition of ' Who's Who,' gives some interesting particulars of the Geratfd family apropos of the fact that four of its memjbers now figure in ' Who's Who ' .— ' Father Jdhm figures as the eldest son of the late Colonel Archibald Gerard, of Rochsiolos, born in 1840, and, at the early age of sixteen, entering the Society he has since so brilliantly served. His brother. General Sir Montagu Gerard, bjofn three years 1 later, has a long record of military distinction in " Who's Who." He, too, is a maker of books and his present experiences at the seat of the war in the Far East will pro^ ide, one supposes, marvellously interesting mjaterial for a Aolume in 'Succession to " Leaves from the Diary of a Soldier and Sportsman." Two lad'iics of the family neighbor their brother in " Who's Who," Madame de Las/.owski, and Madame Lon,gard de Longarde— the Emily and Dorothea Gerard of so many attractive title-pages—" Reata," " Beg,gar my Neighbor," " The Waters of Hercules," and trie rest.' The 'Tablet,' by the way, protests against the continued ignoring of the names of other Jesmits such as Father Thurston and Father Matthew Russell by the compilers of ' Who's Who.' It designates auch exclusion as ' hideous.' And the word is not too strong.