People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 12 August 1909, Page 1268

People We Hear About

The courtesy title of Earl of Arundel is said to dato from the reign of King Stephen. It is believed to be the solitary instance surviving in England of an earldom held by the possession of a castle — namely, Arundel. The earidom of Arundel was held in the middle ages by the FitzAlans. An heiress of the Fitz-Alans married Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and an heiress of the Mowbrays married Sir Robert Howard, father of the first Duke of Norfolk. Mr. J. Cathcart Wason, M.P. for Orkney and Shetland, who entertained Sir Joseph Ward at luncheon at the House of Commons for the purpose of handing to him the" original congratulatory cablegram signed by 400 members, was formerly a sheep farmer in Canterbury. His brother is, or at least was, a member for a Scottish constituency also. They took opposite sides in politics. They had, however, one thing in common, and that was they were the two tallest men in Parliament. By the orders of his physician the Emperor of Austria this year did not wash the feet of a dozen of poor men in imitation of our Lord. It was only the fourth time in 61 years that Francis Joseph has omitted this beautiful ceremony. He was unable to attend the ceremonies of Holy Week. On Wednesday of Holy Week he went to the castle of Wallace, a small town of lower Austria situated on the Danube. Wallace is for ihe greater part of the year the residence of his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Valeria, who is the wife of the Archduke, Francis Salvator. Every year during the • Christmas holidays the Emperor is the guest of his daughter. These days are very happy ones for Francis Joseph, for he dearly loves his daughter's children, of whom there are nine. He has done everything possible for their amusement. At Ischl he has had constructed a large playground for them. These visits of father to daughter are not confined to Christmas only, but are quite frequent during the year. A Dutch correspondent of ah American paper writes: Of course, it will be' no news to your readers' to be told that a little Princess is come to Holland, which is a source of joy and gladness to good old sleepy Holland, as it seems to have been — judging at least from the newspapers — in all the civilised world. But I have my doubts if our Catholics have any idea that our future Queen is a lineal descendant of one great saint and a blood relation of another. I herewith send you an article from the first page of the great Dutch Catholic newspaper, De Maasbqde, of Friday, Aprjl 30, 1909, the great and memorable day for Holland, on account of the birth of a royal Princess, who will live, as we hope, to continue the house of Orange. . The article I send you gives: First, the genealogical trees showing our young Princess to be a lineal descendant of St. Elizabeth of .Hungary ; second, > view of relationship existing between the houses of Orange, Thuringia, ' Gonzaga (Wilhelmina, St. Elizabeth, St. Aloysius). As you will notice from the article, the ' View of Relationship ' is made up by the learned Jesuit, the Rev. Father L. Steger, "hence it will need nofurther comment. The statement cabled last week with reference to the extensions at Krupp's works which have enabled the German Admiralty to construct and arm battleships as rapidly as, or more rapidly, than, Great Britain, reminds us ths,t the firm was founded over a century ago by Peter Friedrich Krupp, who experimented, face to face with poverty and . disappointment, in the casting of large blocks of steel. He was only partially successful. After his death his son Alfred endeavored to find the secret, and, after much patience and perseverance, he solved - the great problem ; and in addition he rapidly made great inventions which brought him in a colossal fortune. The various processes in its manufacture are, of course, kept with jealous secrecy by the authorities, and only carefully picked men aro allowed to the ' holy of lolies ' when the steel is about to be cast. The workers who are engaged on Government orders are not permitted to talk, and few outside the Krupp works and the German Marine Department have any inkling of what the calibre of any of the new monster guns may be. In the city of Eesen there are 250 railway cars for the firm's own railway system, and for communication between 40 telegraph stations and 50 miles of wire, and 400 telephone stations with 250 miles of wire. And over this huge city presides Frau von Bohlen Halbach (nee Fraulein Bertha Krupp), a lady with the handsome income of over a million yearly.

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