People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 14 July 1910, Page 1108

People We Hear About

His Grace Archbishop Farley, of New York, recently celebrated his 68th birthday. His Grace is a native of County Armagh, Ireland. Mr, Justin McCarthy has now in hand the eighth volume of his History of Our Own Times, which will bring down his work to the end of the reign of King Edward VII. The Lord Mayors of Dublin, Belfast, and Cork occupied positions at the burial service of the late King Edward in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. The Lord Mayor of Dublin sat immediately behind the Lord Mayor of London. Queen Alexandra is the seventh in a remarkable group of royal widows, all alive to-day, who have played an important part in shaping the destinies of Europe. Russia, Italy, Spain, Holland, Portugal, and even Republican France have royal widows, and all but the ill-fated Eugenio are powers behind the thrones.

One of the foremost authorities in America on astronomy is a woman, a Catholic woman of California, Miss Rose A. O’Halloran, born in Ireland, citizen of San Francisco. Miss O’Halloran is not only a recognised authority on astronomical matters, but a writer and lecturer of wide reputation, and also a poet of genuine attainments. The editor of Everybody's Magazine has lately been throwing some light on the income of some contemporary writers of short stories. He names seven American writers who are in a position to ask one thousand dollars in cold cash for a story of 5000 words, or twenty cents, a word. They are; Robert W. Chambers, Richard Harding Davis, John Fox, jun., Booth Tarkington, Owen Wister, Jack London, and Frances Hodgson Burnett. General Porfirio Diaz has been re-elected President of Mexico for the seventh time. As in the United States, whose Constitution has been largely copied by Mexico, the Mexican President is elected for a term of four years, and, with the exception of 1880-84 period, Diaz has governed his native Republic with great ability since 1875. He begins his eighth term of office at the age of 79, but he looks and feels many years younger.

Richard Le Gallienne, the poet, was entertaining a group of magazine editors at luncheon in New York. To a compliment upon his fame Mr. Le Gallienne said lightly: ‘But what is poetical fame in this age of prose? Only yesterday a schoolboy came and asked me for my autograph. I assented willingly. And to-day at breakfast time the boy again presented himself. ‘ Will you give me your autograph, sir?’ he said. ‘But,’ said I, ‘I gave you my autograph yesterday.’ ‘ I swopped that and a dollar,’ he answered, ‘for the autograph of Jim Jeffries.’

The extinction of a great name seems to be certain. The Bonapartes legally recognised by the French Courts are now only three—Prince Napoleon Victor, Prince Napoleon Louis, and Prince Roland. All are unmarried except Roland, a widower with one daughter, Princess Marie,'who is the wife of Prince George of Greece. The American Bonapartes are not recognised in France, though, of course, that is. simply passive obedience to a decree whose injustice is not questioned. The Corsican’s line has been short, 150 years at most between the leap to unparalleled power and the fall of the name into oblivion, extinction. The English Royal Family are closely related to nearly all the ruling Houses of Europe. The late King was an uncle of the German Emperor, an uncle by marriage of the Czar, an uncle of the Czarina, a brother-in-law of the Kings of Denmark and Greece, a father-in-law of the King of Norway, and an uncle-in-law of the Queen of Spain; while his relationships by blood and marriage with other reigning families, while not so close, were none the less calculated to cement friendship and render the establishment of international understandings on the basis of sympathy and mutual goodwill of easy accomplishment. Maria Sophia Frederika Dagmar, the royal widow of Russia, is a potent political figure. She is especially interesting by reason of the fact that she is a younger sister of the new widowed Queen Alexandra, and there was always a deep affection between the two Danish princesses who were chosen to ascend to such mighty thrones. Queen Marie was born in 1847, and although throughout her married life with the Czar Alexander 111. she had great sorrows, and although since her widowhood, in 1894, she has passed through troublous times during the reign of her son, the present Czar she has remarkably retained her youthful appearance. -