People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1, 2 January 1908, Page 28

People We Hear About

In the Philippines there is a 'peculiar species of DRnana tree., from the bark of which cloth of a very fine texture can be woven into costly fabrics. Hitherto the . process of- removing the rind from the soft s white fibre has been both tedious and difficult. But Father Matthew _ Atienza, a Spanish Friar of the Franciscan mission in the islands, has devised a machine by which the # rind is' easily and quickly removed, and in so doing has conferred a great "boon upon the large weaving industry. This is only one of the Fiiar's achievements. He has constructed several bridges, among them a suspension bridge, besides being the architect of a very fine church. Viscount Grormanston (writes a correspondent of the ' Catholic Weekly '), who was in 1800 restored to the dignity of the peerage, of which his ancestor had' been deprived on being outlawed in 1691 during- the Wil- v liamite war in Ireland, was not. thereby invested- with legislative rights. Irish, Catholic peers were not entitled before the Union to sit in the "Irish House of Lords nor to vote for members of the House of Commons, which Catholic commoners, although ineligible for election to that assembly, had been entitled to do since -" 1793. After the Union till the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829, Irish Catholic peers were not entitled to . vote for Irish representative peers or to be elected as such. Railways may be said to run in the blood of Lord Brassey, who has boldly suggested the State ownership of lines as a remedy for the evils which now threaten the companies and the travelling public. His father, the humble son of a Cheshire! yeoman, was the first and the rrost successful exploiters of labor by navvies, or ' navigators,' as they were termed, in the construction of , railway tracks. Engineers in England, Europe, and America s>ought his services, and so many were his undertakings that he came to have an army of .'75,000 in his employ. Nearly 7000 miles of railway were laid down under his direction, and the cost ran to close on £80,000,000. Mr.' Labouchere, who left the political arena some " time ago, to the great regret of all who admired his wit and courage in the House of Commons, has finally decided to spend his remaining years in the beautiful villa he has built for himself at Montughi, on the environs of Florence. Mr. Labouchere has gathered round him in his new ' home a cosmopolitan circle which can hardly be matched- elsewhere in Europe. Prelates 1 and| politicians, artists and litterateurs > French, -Russian, Austrian, Italian, English, and American, meet in the salon of the Villa Cristina on equal terms for the exchange of views and anecdotes, and to listen to their host's genial, if cynical, criticism of men and affairs. But though Mr. Labouchere has'deserted_ England as a place of abode, he still takes the keenest interest in English" affairs, social and political. In this he shows himself a disinterested man, for he never obtained that, high place in^the l - anks of the Commons whibh ' his billluincy anltl capacity entitled him to. Tie was too 1 thoroughly a -Radical and too honest a man to succeed in English party politics. The late Mr. John Patrick Murphy, X.C.', whose will has been published (says the London '. Catholic Weekly') died worth £234,000. He bequeathed considerable sums to charities, among them £1000 to the Norwood nuns. Mr. Murphy, who had the distinction of being the biggest man at the Bar, was a bencher and" 'former treasurer of the Middle Temple, a well-known cricketer and singjer, and for some time assistant to the. late Lord Brampton and Baron Poilock. lie took silk in 1874, and after making a gi'eat 'reputation at the Bar retired in 1897, to the regret of his many friends. At all times genial and adroit, he became a master of forensic tactics, which made him, with his high ability, as a lawyer, one of the foremost champions on the • common law side. The 'Times' selected hinvas one. of their senior counsel before the Parnell Commission. His portly figure and good-humored face, with the beaming spectacles, was a constant source of inspiration for caricaturists in court. ' Mr. Murphy -was a Stonyhurst boy. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, in his ' Stonyhurst Memoirs,' records the interesting fact, that Mr. Murphy sang soprano in Novello's ' Adeste ' at the first Christmas Midnight Mass in that college. Mr. Fitzgerald " (says the ' Stonyhurst Magazine ') speaks of his schoolfellow as tall and thin, always wearing an .eyeglass in the corner of his eye, and remarkable even then for the easy manners and good companionship which helped him on his way in life.