People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 25 September 1913, Page 41

People We Hear About

Cardinal Oreglia di Santo Stefano, the dean of the Sacred College, reached his eighty-fifth birthday anniversary in July. He is the oldest of the living Cardinals, as regards appointment, having been nominated to the Sacred College by the late-Pius IX. in 1873. He is now the only surviving Cardinal -created

Among the students of the Propaganda at Rome recently ordained to the priesthood was a young Zulu, the son of a prominent chief, .who is still a pagan. He made a brilliant course in theology, and speaks fluently, besides his own language, French, Italian, and English, the latter with a pronounced Southern drawl. He will work among his own people in South Africa. He is the fourth of his tribe to be ordained to the holy priesthood m the last eleven years. Ordained with him were three Chinamen, who also speak English. By the recent death, at the age of seventy-four, of Mr. Thomas Duggan, Buenos Ayres, the South American multi-millionaire, the largest non-native landowner m the Argentine, and founder of the famous Duggan Bros.' numerous establishments, which now have an international reputation, the country of his adoption has lost a great personality, and Ireland, the land of his birth, a true and staunch friend. Many have been the sincere expressions of grief at the death of one who was the friend of thousands of his fellow-country-men in South America. The Duggans gave employment to thousands of Irishmen and Irish Argentines. In all their estancias the managers, the principal assistants, and many of the employees are Irish—at present there are some 2000 Irishmen or men of Irish extraction on the Duggan estates. The Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Merry del Val, was not in his youth ambitious. As a small boy, he was at school at Slough; but at the age of ten he was transferred to Brussels, and studied at the Conservatoire of Music. His instructor, M. Albeniz, has placed on record his impressions of his pupil- He was a delightful child, of very distinguished manners, and captivating charm. Never in my life have I had a more attentive and assiduous pupil. And I remember one fact which has often haunted my memory when I saw my quondam pupil, in later years, became a priest and obtain preferment to the highest ecclesiastical functions. I was only ten years older than he was; and I sometimes used to amuse myself by asking him what he meant to become when he grew up. Invariably, to my delight, this son of a wealthy diplomat made answer: ' I mean to be a tram conductor.' America quietly calls attention to the fact that, though we hear a great deal about the young man's importance, it is the old man who rules:—The old men have shown in.,a most astonishing way at all times that they not only know but can. It is but yesterday that the brilliant figures of Leo XIII., Gladstone, Bismarck, and others faded from the scene of the world's turmoil and triumphs, only to be succeeded by others on whose brow rests the glory of years. What man engages so much attention of the world to-day as the venerable Pontiff of seventy-eight, whose every pulse-beat is counted by the high and low of all nations, wondering what will happen when he is called to his reward and his name is written on the scroll of the great men of history ? Among the kings and Kaisers of to-day stands the wonderful Franz Josef, who has passed the traditional fourscore, and upon whose life depends the very existence of the composite empire over which he rules, and whose word can hurl the nations of the world into war or dispose them to peace. And now another old man of over seventy rises in majesty and power and heroism before an astonished world: King Nicholas, of Montenegro,— ruler of a little kingdom not larger than Connecticut. ... He is one of those old men who have appeared in every age endowed with wisdom and power that young men lack. The young have their place in the world, though at present too much is made of them. The old still rule. -