People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 10 February 1916, Page 43

People We Hear About

The roster of the United States Senate shows the names of six Catholic members, namely. Senators O’Gorman, of New York; Walsh, of Montana; 1 Ashurst, of Arizona; Ransdell and Broussard, of Louisiana, and Phelan, of California.

Sir Richard Mcßride, for twelve years Premier of British Columbia, has resigned that post. He is the son of poor Irish parents. who emigrated to Canada shortJy before the black famine years in Ireland, and notwithstanding his rise to influence in Government life he has always been an earnest advocate of Home Rule in Ireland. <

The Rome correspondent of a Paris newspaper attributes a very clever mot to Cardinal Gasquet. At the recent Consistory the Cardinal encountered the German Cardinal Hartmann, who began the interview by saying to Cardinal Gasquet, ‘Your Eminence, we will not speak of the war.’ . The English Cardinal promptly replied, ‘ Your Eminence, we will not speak of peace.’ ' ,** Hie report that Anton Lang, who took the part of ‘ Christus ’ a number ol times at Oberammergau, had been killed in the war, which was first published in America, has also been contradicted in America. It is now announced in the German papers that the report was correct. The Vossisch e Zeit-unrj remarks that ‘ no more beautiful death than death for his Fatherland could have been chosen by the man who- so often touched the hearts of the visitors to the Passion Play.’

Of, the sixty Cardinals who constitute the Sacred College, thirty are Italians, six are French, five AustroHungarians, five Spanish, three of the United States, two Germans, two Portuguese, two English, and one each of Holland, Belgium, Ireland, South America, and Canada. Cardinal Netto, formerly Archbishop of Lisbon, has been thirty-one years in the Sacred College, and after him, with twenty-nine years, comes Cardinal Gibbons. The Cardinals whose offices oblige them to reside in Rome are twenty-three, all of them Italians except Cardinals Merry del Val, Billot, Gasquet, Van Rossum, and Fruwirth.

General William Bernard Hickie has taken command of the 16th Irish Division. General Parsons was regarded too old to take the Division to the front. General Hickie has just reached his fiftieth year, being the eldest son of Lieutenant-Colonel J. F. Hickie, of Slepoyre, Borrisokane, County Tipperary, He was educated at Oscott College, entered the 7th Royal Fusiliers, became captain in 1892, passed out of the Staff College in 1899, served in South Africa, was on the Staff and in command of Column D.A.A.G. of the Cork district, 1903-06, and became Brevet-Colonel in 1906. General Hickie has done good work during the present war, and has been mentioned in despatches.

From the appointment of General Castelnau as General Joffre’s chief of staff it is clear that henceforth he and not Joffre will exercise the practical command of the French armies on the Western front. General Joffre himself, it will be remembered, is now Con-mander-in-Chief of all the French armies in the field. The appointment has generally been anticipated, as General Castelnau has since 1912 been General Joffre’s right-hand man.. He is one of the few generals in the Republican armies who openly avows his loyalty to the Catholic Church. He is devoutly religious. There was a moment when this would have hindered his career. But that is past. Castelnau has made sacrifices for his country which represent the height of human suffering. Since the war began three sons have fallen upon the battlefield, and one of his daughters—he has a very large family—has had her forearm amputated as the result of blood-poisoning contracted in hospital service.. It would be difficult to find a man more finely representing that spirit of race and patriotism so conspicuous in France at the present moment.