People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 21 July 1910, Page 1148

People We Hear About

The late King Edward was a connoisseur in walking sticks, of which he had a fine collection. One of the most treasuredit is now more than two and a half centuries —is made out of a branch of the historic Boscobel oak in which Charles 11. took shelter after the defeat of the Royalist forces at Worcester. During the later years ofher life Queen Victoria used this stick, and she had the round 'knob replaced by a small Indian idol from Serlngapatam, mounted as a handle. Among the curiosities of Australian newspaper literature (says a writer in the Melbourne Advocate) is the. life of the late King Edward VII., which appeared in the Hobart Mercury immediately after the King's death. It will be remembered that in 1902 the Coronation of Edward VII. had to be postponed on account of the serious illness of his Majesty. Mr. J. L. Forde, who was then a member of the Parliamentary staff of the Mercury, was told off to write a biography of the King, to be used in case of ' the worst' happening. He did so, but happily King Edward recovered and was crowned. The Mercury's biography lay in cold lead in the office for eight years—during nearly the entire reign of his Majestyand the other day, when, to the great grief of the nation. King Edward did die, the seven columns of his life which had lain so long in the office were published. In the meantime Mr. Forde had been to England, and for four months was a near neighbor of the King in London. During his attachment to the Mercury staff, Mr. Forde wrote the biographies of Mr. Gladstone, Prince Bismarck, Pope Leo XIII., and Queen Victoria when those distinguished persons diea. Under the heading ' The Bishop-Elect of Auckland,' ' Eubulus' writes as follows in the Tasmanian Monitor : ' In the new Bishop of the priests' choice and the Holy Father's appointment, the Catholic people of Auckland have secured as their chief pastor one of the most cultured priests in Australasia, and one of the most lovable of men. The writer's knowledge of Dr. Cleary goes back over thirty years; and in the Bishop-Elect of Auckland he sees realised the promise of the young, cheerful, gentlemanly, and amiable student of days long past. As to the future, even then the only doubt one had about him was whether the rather frail casket enshrining the brilliant and gifted soul that looked out on you from those kindly Irish eyes could hold out long enough to give the young ecclesiastic an opportunity of making his true worth known. The genial Australian climate, however, settled that doubt, and has secured for Auckland a pastor, whose services as a clergyman and a citizen no priest in Australasia may justly claim to have surpassed. Dr. Cleary, who is a native of Wexford, has many of the characteristics of his people. There is not perhaps in Ireland a county where you will find more people that can trace their lineage back to the days when Norman invaders capitulated to the charms of Irish virtue and became in very truth more Irish than the Irish themselves. The power of Celtic assimilation lives in the Wexford air. The men and women that breathe it are true Celts of Celts. No wonder, then, that we should find all the ardor of Celtic devotion burning in the veins of the BishopElect of Auckland. No one who has read his Impeached Nation can fail to see that in pleading his country's cause before strangers Dr. Cleary was inspired by the true Wexfordman's devotion to his old home. Patriotism glints from every page, from every sentence. He knew his country's wrongs: her fair fame was dear to him as very life, and he put her case before the stranger with a fulness of detail and a strength of conviction that could be expected from none other than from such a gifted and brilliant" Irishman as he. Educated in Ireland, France, and Rome in the best schools of ecclesiastical training of which these lands can boast, Dr. Cleary, in his defence of the Church, showed how thoroughly he felt the wisdom of the Irish Apostle's saying: As you are children of Christ, so be you children of Rome." He defended the cause of truth, which is everywhere the Church's cause, with singular ability, with a zeal that never grew weary, and with a success that falls to the lot of very few. And he did it with a charity that made no break in friendships already formed, that won for him troops of friends even among those outside the Catholic fold.' ' . "