People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 3, 17 January 1907, Page 28

People We Hear About

_:_ ' When it was announced the other day, says a writer in the ' Daily News/ 'that the;- late Lord " Arundell of Wardour was succeeded by' his. brother; /itwas also mentioned thai the new peer was a Catholic,/ priest. This general statement was improved." upon by some .of Lord Aru'ndell's own co-religionists, ' who .an- , nounced that he was a .member of the Jesuit Order. Lord Arundell, however, corrected "this statement" and ' announced himself as a retired secular priest. He is not th/ 2; first Catholic priest to become a peer of Parlia- "' ment. , More - than twenty years ago the late Lord Petre," a Catholic clergyman,: took. his seat in the House of Lords.' Sir Thomas Echlin, who has just passed away/ a sergeant of the R.I.C. at the depot, Dublin,- has been, the subject of general comment in the press of Great and Ireland. He was a man of the most_ unpretentious and democratic character. 'When the Castle authorities,- learned, on. the death ' of his father, that* i, the ranks of the force embraced a- real live iiobleman{ who patrolled as a private, SAr Thomas was. summoned ..to* Dublin, but his unassuming character was not of the * stamp - that encouraged the bestowal of promotion of anadvanced order. He was appointed to the office of Inspector-General, where he continued unobtrusively to carry out his duties with the rank of sergeant.;. The ■ baronetcy is about a century old, the original baronet "occupying a high judicial position in Ireland. He was" a Baron of, the -Court of ' Exchequer.

Mr. F. E. Barnard, the Radical member for Kidderminster, has been telling a delightful storyi fcf having a half-sovereign^ slipped' into his hand by, an American - visitor whom he had been asked by the manager of " his - hotel in London to get into the Gallery of" the House of Commons, The late Sir Wftliani Gossett, who was Sergeant-at-Arms of the Htfuse- of Commons* *for .a generation, had a half-crown suspended from lAs watch-chain given him by a .visitor to the House of Commons, in ignorance of his position ; while better still, the Duke of Norfolk preserves as a precious memento—to, use his own words—' The only money" he ever earned,' a sixpence, given him by a lady at .the " Arundel— Station, who, mistaking him for 1 an idlerabout the place, told him to fetch her "a dab,, and thus rewarded his compliance with her request. A correspondent writes to "the ' Manchester Guardian ' to say that it is natural that Mr. Stephen' Gwynn, the new member for Galway, should -have Nationalist children, seeing that he married his cousin, and that they descended by both parents from William Smith O'Brien. ' But their , young Nationalism,' he writes, ' sometimes led to strange results £n the- South . Kensington quarter in 'which they passed some years 'of their childhood. It gave them father -a -bad time, for instance, in their preparatory school, 'especially 'at his- " tory classes, when they .had a tendency -to dispute the English rendering of Cromwell's treatment, of Ireland, and so on. 'I remember best the -day when they came to tea with nig, and I overheard the. elder of the two boys proudly -telling a most decorous little girl in a white muslin frock, «• I had a great-grand-father who was sentenced to be hanged." 'Before :the little girl could recover, the other boy added, " Uri- , fortunately, Queen pardoned him.." '' Lord Merries,- whose illness is reported, is- the fourteenth Lord Hcrries of the. peerage.- of Scotland •(1491). He ia the great-great-great-grandson of- the tenth Lord Herries, who was also the fifth Earl Mdsdale, and who is famous for liis escape from "the Tower by his wife's help, the night before he was to have been executed for - high treason. """title was attainted, \but »ln ,1858 the present - peer's' father was pronounced' to be the -thirteenth' Lord Herries. Born in -1837, Lord Herries succeeded his father in 1876. He 'is a Catholic, educated at. Stonyhurst. Lord Herries is Lord-Lieutenant of Kirkcudbrightshire and of the. Fast Riding, an East Riding CO., and_JElon. .Colonel of the _East Riding I.Y. .He was formerly a' captain in the . Yorkshire Yeomanry Hussars. He married the Hon. Angela Mary Charlotte Mtzala/n-How-ard, daughter of the 'first Lord Howard of Glossop. There is no heir to his U.K. barony, but to the Scottish -peerage the heiress is "-Lord Herries 's daughter, the Duchess of Norfolk. , " ,