People We Hear Aboul

New Zealand Tablet, 3 April 1913, Page 41

People We Hear Aboul

The Empress Eugenie will celebrate her 87th birthday on May 6, which, curiously enough, is the anniversary of the death of Naploeon I. A noted horsewoman in her younger days, the Empress has latterly shown a great fondness for yachting. Our Home exchanges report the death of Baroness von Huge!, who passed away at Cambridge, England, at the age of 82 years. Her husband, the late Baron von Hugel, was the distinguished diplomatist and botanist, the friend of Metternich, and some time Austrian Envoy at the Courts of Florence and Brussels, She was the mother of Friedrich, Baron , von Hugel, the Catholic philosopher and Biblical critic, and of Baron Anatole von Hugel, curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge. An interesting instance of a peerage being secured by a little girl two years of age, is afforded by tne career or Baroness Beaumont, who was born on August 1, 1894, and whose barony was called out of abeyance in her favor when she was not two years of age, on June 1, 1896. The Beaumont peerage dates back to the fourteenth century, but on the death of the seventh Baron in 1507 the peerage fell into abeyance until 1840. A second but much briefer abeyance followed in 1895, when the tenth Baron left at Ins death two daughters, to the elder of whom, the present Baroness (who, by the way, is a Catholic), the succession was awarded by the Crown the following year. By the victory of Londonderry, Liberalism gains not only a moral out a physical reinforcement (says a Lobby correspondent). Mr. Hogg, who won the seat, towers above his new colleagues, and the fame of the brothers Wason, the two Scottish giants, is threatened with eclipse. Ferhaps either' of them would weigh down the scales against the newcomer, but in height Mr. Hogg has the advantage. It is fortunate that he takes his seat as a Liberal, and not as a Nationalist, for it is difficult to see how little Mr. Patrick O’Brien, the Nationalist Whip, could communicate instructions orally to the giant. On Saturday, February lj while the students of Scots College, . Rome, were playing football in the grounds of the Villa Daria Pamphili, one of ~ them, named William Hart, from Dumbarton, and a student oi the Glasgow archdiocese, met with an accident. At the time the Queen-Mother was on the grounds, and one of her attendants, seeing the accident, ran to inform her. She immediately placed her motor car at the disposal of the injured student, and Mr. Hart was speedily brought home, the Queen remaining until the automobile returned. Later in the evening the Rector, Monsignoi Fraser, went to the palace and conveyed to Queen Margaret the thanks of the superiors and students for her gracious kindness. 'Mr. Samuel Young, the Irish M.P., who .has entered on his ninety-second year (says the Parliament correspondent of London Opinion ), was. the happy recipient of many congratulations on his birthday. lie is incomparably the most 5 wonderful old man that Westminster has ever seen, for, despite his weight of years, his step is still jaunty, he attends most regularly to his Parliamentary duties,, deals with his own. correspondence, and is in full possession of bodily and mental vigor. Indeed, so far as I can see, there is not the slightest reason why ( Sam ’ should not go on living for ever. Mr. C. P. Villiers was ninety-six when he died in. 1898, but he was only nominally an M.P. during his last ten years, and was unable to discharge any of the public duties of his position ; so that Mr. Young holds the record easily. I am told by a prejudiced teetotaller that he is a distiller, and that his longevity is due to the fact that he has never tasted his own whisky. The Grand Old Man does not deny thfe imj nOu aeny me impeachment, and last night I heard him send a circle of English friends into a roar of laughter by adding • ‘ And, what’s more, I never'sell any of it in Ireland, so that it kills nobody but Englishmen.’ ’