People We Hear Aboul

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11, 18 March 1909, Page 438

People We Hear Aboul

-j. ■ i ISS Beatrice Mills, whose marriage to Lord Granard took place about the middle of January, will probably soina day inherit a share : of -the v enprmous wealth of her grandfather,, Mr. Darius Ogden Mills, the well-known ' millionaire philanthropist. 3 Mr; Darius Mills was very modestlycradled, 83 years ago, in North Salem, New York State, and began his working life as clerk' in a New York store: At 22 he was cashier in a Buffalo bank ; and when the gold fever broke out in California in 1849 the young- cashier made his way. to Sacramento; where his financial talent put £8000 in his pocket within the first twelve months. Then followed the founding of the bank of D. O. Mills and Co., the cradle of the many millions he later won. But it is ,as a philanthropist that Mr. Mills is best known ; and • there are thousands in his ' poor men's hotels ' in New York who bless 'his name to-day. : There is commenced in the February number of London the ' Authorised Biography ' of Madame Melba, tho great prima donna (says the Dublin Freeman's Journal). It is written by Agnes Murphy, one of Melba? s secretaries. Her other secretary is another 'Anglo-Saxon' called O'Hara. The beginning of the autobiography contains .quite a number of interesting details, but perhaps that which will most interest all our young friends who ' have -voices' is the fact that some exceptionally competent judgesdid not think much of Melba's, now regarded as the finest cantatrice in the^world. Signor Alberto Randegger said ' he did not feel warranted in accepting her as a pupil,' •_. and Sir Arthur Sullivan ' did not consider her vocal attainments -sufficiently good to justify his suggesting , hex inclusion in the Savoy Opera Company, although he did add that if she worked hard he might be able to get hex -an engagement in "The Mikado" after "a year's further study.' This reads -quite Gilbertian in the light of hex" career since then." Think of the Melba of the Mad Scene

in ' Lucia di Lammermour ' as one of the Three Little •Maids in ' The Mikado.' The moral for the -budding prima donna or primo tenore is to continue to have that magnificent confidence in herself or himself which' is, indeed, inseparable from the one or the. other. We have" often heard it said that to slight a young vocalist's voice —nay, to consider it anything below the second greatest of its kind in the world — is -the deadliest and most unforinsult, and now the case of Melba can be cited in justification for that adamantine attitude. -*"

The appearance the other "day of the Knight of Glba (Mr. Desmond Fitz-John Fitzgerald) as a witness in a prosecution in one of the Dublin police courts will perhaps render it of interest to know that his "title of Knight of Glin is one of two hereditary Irish titles — the other is that of the Knight of Kerry — which are not to be confounded with 1 ancient Irish chieftaincies claimed by representatives of the Irish Septs at the present time (says the Wexford People). The titles of "Knight of Glin and Knight of Kerry are of a very peculiar character, and, though not regal honors, have been held -as prescriptive rights from medieval times, and at various times have been recognised by the Crown in patents under the Great Seal and - other legal documents. Joha Fitz-Thomas Fitzgerald, Lord of Decies and Desmond, by - virtue of his royal seignory as a Count Palatine created three of his sons by his second, marriage hereditary Knights, and thus originated the titles. That of the White Knight, is now extinct; and the two other hereditary Knightships are now, so far as we are aware, the only titles now extant of this peculiar - species of honor. The__ father of the present Knight of Kerryfwas made a baronet in 1880, within a month before his .death. Under the ancient Irish law " of Tanistry the Irish chieftains were elective, and required formal investiture by their clans, and the title did not descend hereditarily. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these chieftaincies were surrendered by their then holders to the Crown, and ceased to exist. ' About the beginning of the nineteenth century some of the representatives of the last ~ holders of tie ' chieftaincies assumed the titles, and they became recognised by courtesy. They are not, however, officially recognised. There are twelve of these titles now extant, including those of the MacDermot, Prince of Coolavin; the MacGillicuddy of the Reeks, the O'Grady, the O'ConorDon, the O'Donoghue of the Glens, the Fox of Kilcoursie, the O'Morchoe, ~ the O'Kelly, the O'Toole, the O'Maine, the O'Donovan, and the MacDermott Roe. - ,

Mr. George Davies, of Colombo street, Christchurch, is not a philanthropist, nor does he claim to be one, although he gives a well-cut suit of clothes at half of what a suitwould cost elsewhere. How he does it is explained by him in another part of this* issue....." %1 •