People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 43, 24 October 1907, Page 28

People We Hear About

At eighty-one, the Empress Eugenic still takes a long walk every morning, and still entertains her friends at every week-end. One of her ladies-in-waiting at the Tuillpa-ies, Mme. Darton, is still, in her service, and she has gradually accumulated a 'great store of relics of the First and Second Empires. - The Winterhalter picture of herself and her ladies is '.among the pictures, but the most precious of all the relics is the sword of Austerlitz and Waterloo. , The conferring of the freedom of "the town of Wexford on Mr. John Redmond, M.P., recalls the fact that three generations of his family have represented the old Borough in Parliament. Mr. Redmond's gprand-' uncle and namesake, Mr. John Edward Redmond, was member for the Borough of Wexford from 1859 till 1865. Mr. Redmond's father, Mr. William Archer Redmond, was member for Wexford from 1872 till his death, when the seat was pressed upon Mr. Redmond himself;' and Mr. Redmond's brother, Mr. William Redmond, sat for Wexford from ,1883 till 1886. Mr. Redmond himself entered the House of Commons for the first time in 1881 as member for the Wexford Borough of New Ross. The Emperor of Austria, who is reported to be seriously ill, was "born on August 18, 1830, and ascended the throne of Austria on December 2, 1848. He was crowned King of Hungary in 1867. An exchange of recent date said :—: — All persons who approach the Emperor Francis Joseph state with astonishment that age has little visible ho]d*on the aged Sovereign. The latter attributes his excellent state of health to the regimen which' he has long followed. He formerly used to smoke from 10 to strong cigars daily ; he now contents himself with one or two. He " only drinks tErojughout the day two glasses of beer and a liftlp light wine ; he sleeps much, and avoids 'with the greatest care all risks of catching cold. The Emperor Has lost only three teeth, anil he enjoys the happy privilege, up to the present day, of not knowing what it is to have neuralgia or headache. _ Lord Granard is one of the comparatively few members of the Peerage who is the holder of titles historically associated with memories not of shame, but of honor. His Irish Peerages were conferred more than two centuries ago on an * ancestor for -distinguished military services. The Earl of Granard at -the time of the Union vehemently opposed that measure,--'and was one of the signatories to the memorable Lords' ' Protest against the "Union. His attitude, of course, coupled with the fact That he was a brother-in-law- of the Earl of Moira, who in the Irish House of Lords and the English House of Lords denounced the atrocities of the '98 period, procured for him the hostility of Pitt and Castlereagh, who took care that he should not be elected as an Irish Representative Peer to sit in the English House of Lords. Pitt died on January 22, 1806. The .Ministry of All The Talents was formed on February 11, and one of its first steps* was to confer a Peerage of tfie United Kingdom on the Earl of Granard, th"c date of the creation being February 24, 1806. Apropos of the recent inquiry into the allowance made by Government to the Lord Mayor of Dublin, who draws from Army funds the salary of a captain of foot the ' Westminster ' writes :— • The occupant ■ of the position of Lord Mayor of Dublin has at least on one occasion taken part in active warfare. The sword with which the Lord Mayor of Dublin "fought in the battle of the Boyne on the side^of James 11. is preserved in the Mansion House, Dublin.- It is not perhaps generally known that the IrisH Viceroyalty, wEich a-ineasure, in charge of Lord John Russell in the fifties of the last century, that passed through every stage in the House of Comrrons was designed to abolish, owes its continued existence, to tlie Dublin Lord Mayoralty. The Bill was opposed in the House of Lords by the Duke of Wellington, who drew an alarming picture of the Lord Mayor of Dublin being placed, as he would be in the event of the abolition of the Lord-Lieutenancy in in the position of chief authority in' the city of Dublin whereas now he is puisne to the Lord-Lieutenant. How', he asked, would they like a man of the calibre of O'Connell, whom he had known and seen as Lord Mayor of Dublin, to be invested "with such power ? The Bill, by way of reply to the question, was dropped. In a vast majority of instances, melancholy is only the result of pride.— St. Teresa.