People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 40, 7 December 1905, Page 10

People We Hear About

Mr. Richard Thomas Gillow, probably the oldest justice of the peace m the United Kingdom, died at Ins residence, Leigh ton Hall, Carnlorth, Lancashire, in his !iUth year. Deceased was a prominent Catholic. There is something uncommon about the fact (says an exchange) that the catastrophe in Calabria was predicted by Father Alfani, of the Society of the Pious Schools, one ot the start at the Osservatono Ximeniano at Florence This humble religious foretold the earthquake a month beforehand, and guided the observations and studies of scientists during the outbreak and alter. The Very Rev. John Stanislaus Flanagan, Dean of Limcuck, who died recently at his residence, Adarc, in his 85th year, was at the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Pans, when the revolution of 1818 broke out, and he had to make his way out of the city m lay disguise. For some years he was a member ot the Birmingham Oiatory under Dr. Newman, with whom he always remained on terms of the closest friendship, and he assisted Dr. iNewman by preparing some of the theological matter for the ' Apologia proiYita Sua.' The present Bishop of Limerick was the Dean's curate for some years. hir 1 nomaH Esmonde's muihci was a daughter of Henry CJ rattan's eldest son and biographer, who had the same name as his lather, and was lor more than a generation a member of the House of Commons. Another gieat-giandfather ot Sir Thomas Esmonde, Mr. John Esmonde, was executed for high treason in 17 ( J8. \ iscount Ilayaslu, who opened the bazaar for Father Hoiiy's Homes at St. George's lla.ll, Liverpool, the other day, has everywhere won golden opinions for his unfailing tact and urbanity as a member of the politest ot nations His wisdom, Keen observation, and shrewdness have become pioveibial He speaks in English and French as well as m Japanese. Sir Henry living wa-, married to a Dublin lady, who survives him She was the daughter of Surgeon-Gene-ral O'Callaghan and t he niece of a famous Irish man of lot! cms, .John Cornelius O'Callaghan. Mi. O'Callaghan had a crabbed and unpleasant style, but his books, 'The 1 i i -.h Bngade ' and 'The Green Book,' aie vast storehouses of interesting infoimation, which will, we hope, be made picturesque by some w liter of the luture. Mr. O( allannan, a ballad of whose appeared m 'The Spirit ol the Nation,' lived up to a couple of decades ago, and was until shoUly befoie his death a well known l!u,ui.' in the enclosure of "Mount |oy Square All the contiilnitois to the 'Spirit ot the Nation' are now dead save the venerable author of 'Who Fears to Speak of '',S > ' October, the month of the falling iea\cs, which has witnessed the death, of Sir lleniy li\ing, witnessed also thi' (i'Jth of I, old Tenii} son, who died on October ii, IX I ).}, w!k so (lianias Uvmti, ananged for the stage, whose ' Philip ' in ' Queen Maiy ' was one of living's principal cieations, and m whose ' Becket ' Irving appeaied, literally within an haul of his death. Quite a piimbei ol eminent men have dud in October — Swift, i'aineil, I'almerston, Derby, Sir William Ilaicourt, cMiiouii, politicians, Walter Raleigh and Nelson among English popuUi heroes, Hogarth among painters; William \loms, Edgar Allan Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Tennvsoii among litetary men , and the record of these death-, m October hy no means exhausts the lists ol men who have occupied Ilie fust lank m the shining bands ol lame to whom this month has pioved fatal '1 lie ' W est minster Ga/elte,' commenting on the Popes counienauce to athleticism, tells an mteiestmg lale oi the late Aichbishop Ctoke and his devotion to physical cultuie — Some suipnse has natuially been expressed at (be Pope's sanctioning and ]>at l onising a spotts gathei ing within the piecincis ot the Vatican, but it should be remembered thai he was once an ardent athlete himself, and attained distinction as an Alpine climber VYhi'e athletic Pope's may be rate, pi chile-, ami priests devoted to open-air spoils m then leisuie houis have been by "no means uncommon. The late Archbishop Cioko, lor instance 1 , look a leading part in the revival of Hie old Caelic spoils m Ireland He was a piomuHMil athlete m his prune, and even alter he became a pi elate he kepi up some ol his old physical activities. While he was Bishop of \ui-klaiul, in New Zealand, he was greatly admired Iry the Mam is for hit jumping feats. There is* a pirliu esquc legend that he once converted a whole Maori village by some piodigious pimps over iences, but Hie story should be caietully -u-tiiicd by the ecclesiastical historian.