People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 15 June 1911, Page 1113

People We Hear About

‘ ■ Most Rev. Dr. Farley, Archbishop of New York, quietly observed> the sixty-ninth anniversary of his birth .on April 20. His Grace is a native of County Armagh, Ireland. :>. Mr. George E. Griffin, newspaper man. and lawyer/- a great-grand-nephew, of Gerald Griffin, the Irish poet, died at Liberty, Sullivan County, N.Y;-, on April 16, at.the age of thirty-live, years. Mr. Griffin was for many years on the editorial staff of the Albany Argus:r; A year more oh',. earth would have given Sir. William -Butler one of - the happiest days of. a life of many , joys and sorrows (writes the London Tablet): His second soli, Richard, who made his vows as a Benedictine ' spine time ago, was ' ordained priest {on April 15, • Lady - Butler, his youngest' sister, and his eldest brother, straight from- his regiment in India, having met in Rome for the ceremony. The successes - and disappointments,{ griefs and glories of the late General’s career would, we may be sure, have been light for him in comparison with the happiness of. this one hour of the Holy Saturday. ‘ ' A famous career of service, as military, chaplain ends with the retirement of Father Collins, D. 5.0., the Senior Chaplain of the British Forces.... Father Collins began his priestly life as an Oblate? of St. Charles s at'-Bays water, several years before he received . his first commission in 1879. There are few better known instances of heroism on the part of the modern British army chaplain in the field than the oft-told tale of Father Collins’ gallant bearing at the action of McNeil’s Zareba - during the Soudan’ Campaign of 1885. On that occasion he crossed a fire-swept zone to deliver an urgent message in ; a distant part of the field. - His D.S.O. was of more modern winning m South Africa, and he has served on Lord Haldane’s Advisory committee on the Spiritual and Moral Welfare .'of 7 the Army. , ~ ■’?';{.?{ ' The Right Rev. Dr. Graham, who has resigned charge of the diocese of Plymouth (England), is 77 years of .age. He is a native of Mhow, India, and is the eldest son of the latg Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Graham, who died in 1888. He studied for the priesthood at the English College, Rome, and was ordained in 1857. He was stationed first at Plymouth Cathedral, later becoming Canon and Vicar-General of the diocese, over which he , was destined to rule. He was consecrated by Bishop {Clifford as titular Bishop of Cisaraos, and Coadjutor to Bishop William Vaughan in 1891, succeeding him in 1902. The ,Plymouth diocese includes the whole of the ancient diocese’of Exeter, with a portion of the old : Salisbury diocese. It covers Devon, Dorset, Cornwall, and the Scilly Islands, and ; n part is inhabited by a race that was last to yield, to the Reformation, and is said to be now equally stubborn in the retention of its newer ideals. { - Mr. John Dillon M.P., was motoring last week,{when- his car struck against a birdge. He was flung against the screen and badly cut and thrown to‘the bottom of the car. On examination it was found that his back was injured, and as there were signs of collapse the last sacraments ere administered. 'He was ,removed to the Dundalk Infirmary. The latest-accounts are to the effect that Mr. Dillon is recovering. Mr; Dillon is now in his sixtieth year, having been born at Druid’s Lodge, Killiney, Mayo, in 1851. His father was John Blake Dillon, who was one of the founders of the Nation. Mr. John Dillon was educated at the Catholic University, and -is a member of the Royal; College of Surgeons. He was elected M.P. for County Tipperary in 1880, and has sat for Mayo East since 1885. { He is a widower; his wife (a daughter of the late Right Hon. Lord Justice Mathew) died in 1907. i-'-ricii-? Mr. Gustavus Wilhelm Wolff, of the firm -of Harland and Wolff, Belfast, was a few _ weeks ago.-presented with the freedom of the city. In his reply to the presentation, Mr. Wolff referred to .the start of the Queen’s Island shipbuilding yard, saying that 53 years ago he and the late Sir Edward Harland, Bart., were advised to go to Liverpool to inquire after some ground. They were received very kindly by the Liverpool Harbor authorities, but that board thought they were too young to start a shipbuilding yard. He (Mr. Wolff) was only twenty-three and Sir Edward Harland only a few years older. Perhaps they were young, but still he thought those gentlemen had made a little mistake in not liking young men for a job of that sort. However, they could not get the ; ground, and they travelled again to Belfast, and came to an agreement with Mr. Hickson to purchase his yardlock, stock, and barrel—for £SOOO. It was worth • much more now. They appealed to the Belfast Harbor Commissioners to grant ground to them, , and they had more sense than the Liverpool Board, for now the firm employed 14.000 men, and paid £23,000 per week in wages in ; the city of Belfast.