People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 20, 21 May 1908, Page 28

People We Hear About

The news that the Hon. Edward Blake, of Toronto, for many years an honored member of the Irish party, is gradually recovering his health will be welcome to the friends of Ireland wherever they are found. He was a tower of strength to the national movement, representing South Longford, and his consistency and courage were an inspiration to thousands of younger men. May he live to see the fruition of his patriotic work.

There are now three widowed Queens of Portugal: the widow of the exiled King Miguel I. of the House of Braganza, who is a nun in the Benedictine Convent of St. Cecilia, Isle of Wight; Queen Maria Pie, born Princess of the House of Savoy, daughter of Victor Emmanuel I. of Italy, mother of the late King Carlos; and Queen Amalia, born Princess of Orleans, whose marriage with King Carlos was in a great measure brought about by Queen Victoria, ever a friend to the ladies of the House of Orleans.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the extreme simplicity of the Holy Father himself since his elevation to the Pontificate is not really half as remarkable as the simplicity of his relatives. In the great Papal functions there is always a special tribune in a place of honour for his two sisters and his niece, who live in Rome within a stone's throw of the Vatican, and the sisters are described officially as ' The Most Excellent Sisters Sarto,' but they have made no change in their dress, or in their mode of living, or in their attention to the simple duties of their household. The Holy Father's brother is still employed in a small post office. Another of the Pope's sisters, with his brother-in-law and nephews and nieces, continue to make their living in their native village by a flourishing little osteria. It seems never to have even struck them that they should make any change in their lives because their brother has become the most potent and the most venerable figure in the whole world!

The President of the United States gets a salary of £10,000 a year, to which the last Congress added £5,000 a year for travelling expenses. This addition was the direct outcome of the aroused public sentiment against transportation abuses. It was not considered proper that the President should travel in special trains furnished by the railway companies, without cost to him or the Government. Mr, Roosevelt announced that in future he would accept no transportation favours from railroads, and Congress thereupon made an appropriation, or the President would have been obliged to stay at home or pay the expenses of his trips out of his private funds. In the good old days, before the United States became a World-power and Washington a world-capital, the President was able to save a comfortable sum of his salary of £5,000 a year. Life was simpler then, and fewer social demands upon the Chief Executive. But now, Mr. Roosevelt, with a salary of £15,000, must draw upon his private income to pay for the elaborate functions which mark his Administration.

Mr. Justin McCarthy, the distinguished novelist and historian, wrote to the Committee of the St. Patrick's Day banquet in London regretting his inability to attend, at the same time sending his best "wishes for the success of the function. At his advanced age and the state of his health it was hardly to be expected that he would be able to attend. Concerning his last birthday, the London 'Evening Standard' (Conservative) wrote as follows: — ' Congratulations are due to-day to a veteran in literature and politics, Justin McCarthy, who was born in Cork seven and seventy years ago. He graduated as a journalist first in his native city, then in Liverpool, reaching London eventually, and becoming leader writer on the * Daily News.' His first Parliamentary experience was as member for Longford County in 1879, and from then until his resignation in 1896, his public record is part of the history of our own times. A typical Irishman, his withdrawal from active literary life has been a distinct and hitherto unreplaced loss. He lives very quietly at Westgate-on-Sea, and is said to be preparing a final volume of his recollections of public life.'- -.