People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 18 December 1913, Page 41

People We Hear About

-^ r - *. Pt’ Bonovan, well known in New Zealand, winch he visited a couple of years ago in company with Messrs. R. Hazleton and W. A. Redmond, has just passed his examination for admission to the Irish Bar. Hitherto he was a solicitor by profession. Catholics are numerous in official Washington. The private secretary to the President, the Treasurer of the United States, two Justices of the United States Supreme Court, and seventy members of the present Congress four in the Senate and sixty-six in the House of Representativesare Catholics.

The capacity of Irishmen for public affairs, is witnessed once more by the present crisis in Mexico. The British representative is Sir Lionel Carden, a Tipperary man, while the American Government has confided its interests to a gentleman with the unmistakably Irish patronymic ox O’Shaughhessy.

The feast of St. Raphael (October 24), was the name-day of Cardinal Merry del Val, Secretary of State to his Holiness. Congratulations poured in on his Eminence. On October 10 he was forty-eight years of age, and on November 9 he completed the first decade of his Cardinalate, having been raised to the purple at the first consistory held by Pius X.., on November 9, 1903, when he was only thirty-eight. His ‘ creation ’ and his appointment as Secretary of State were simultaneous. The appointment (says Rome caused far more surprise than the ‘ creation.’ He was the youngest Secretary of State since the office was founded and entrusted to St. Charles Borromeo, he was the first non-Italian to occupy it, and he was per* haps the only one in hundreds of years who had not been trained for it by a long diplomatic career.

Thomas Guy, the founder of the famous London Hospital which bears his name, enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most frugal men of his age. The extravagances in drink and food and dress, evidences of which were presented to him on every side, cruelly shocked his miserly soul. A writer tells the following with regard to Huy: ‘Thomas Guy was the most notorious misex of his age, and a story of an encounter with a kindred spirit, “Vulture Hopkins,” illustrates his philosophy, and reveals the secret of his wealth. Hopkins called on him one evening, to find him working by the light of a farthing candle, “I wait upon you,” he said, “for a lesson in frugality, an art in which I used to think I excelled, but in which I am now told you are my superior.” “If that’s all you’ve come about,” said Guy, “ why, then, we can talk as well in the dark.” He promptly extinguished the candle, and Hopkins left with his lesson learned.’

His Grace the Archbishop of Adelaide celebrated his sixty-seventh birthday on November 19, and received a large number of congratulations from all quarters. The Register published an interesting chat with his Grace in his garden, under the heading A Much-loved Prelate.’ The article concluded as follows:—The sun was dipping and pencilling the paths of the garden with shadow. Three hours had gone, and I was still enjoying the radiance of a great personality. ‘ Tell me,’ I remarked, as we walked down among the hedges to the gate, ‘ you have been very happy in South Australia?’ The Archbishop gripped my hand. ‘ I’ve been as happy as a black-boy,’ he rejoined, in his own humorous and expressive way. ‘ I have never regretted coming. Never for one moment. I have met with kindness on every side. And, on the whole, my fellow-clergymen are very decent fellows. I dearly love the South Australian people. I am friendly to all classes, to all denominations, and they are all friendly to me. There is a great future before our State. I hope God’s hand will ever be extended in blessings over it. May a share of those blessings come to every man, woman, and child in the land.’ That was his message 'oh 'the eve of his sixty-seventh birthday. ■