Here and There

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 50, 17 December 1924, Page 45

Here and There

J McCormick's Success.— John McCor'mick, the great Irish tenor, who has now returned to America, has everv reason to be pleased and flattered with his reception in London after ten years' absence. Even the •severest and least friendly of critics, while offering some criticism of Mr. McCormick's Vsingmg in selections from classical music, 'lhave all been constrained to admit that in his rendering of Irish songs the singing of the great tenor was irreproachable and able. In view of the near approach of the St. Vincent de Paul concert in Glasgow, for which, by the way, the booking has been so heavy as to exhaust all booked seats (says a Scottish exchange), recalls the fact that it was at a S.V.P. concert McCormick made his bow as a vocalist to a Scottish audience. His success was immediate and enduring. Professional concert promoters brought him back repeatedly to Glasgow, and his appearance was always sure to bring a crowded hall. It may be interesting to know that on his first appearance in Glasgow his fee—possibly mitigated for a charity concert—was ■only £ls. That was a pre-war figure. It may be questioned whether ten times that :suim would secure a concert appearance now :from a singer who, in many respects, has .become the world's finest living tenor. * * * Catholic Chief Justice of Canada.—lt is officially announced .in Ottawa that Judge F. A. Anglin, a Puisne Judge of the Supreme 'Court of Canada, is to succeed the late Sir Louis Davies as Chief Justice. Judge FranVis Alexander Anglin, a son of Mr. T. W. .Agglin, for some time Sneaker in the Canadian House of Commons, was born at St. •John, New Brunswick, in 1860. He was educated at St. Mary's College, Montreal, and , 'the University of Ottawa, was called to the 'Ontario Bar in 1888 and was created a K.C. in 1902. He was appointed Puisne of the 'Ontario High Court of Justice in 1904, and .Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1909. He was the author of several .'legal works. * * * The Howards of Glossop.— late Lord Howard of Glcssop, who died at Dorlin, his ;seat in Inverness-shire, was of purely Fuglish descent, being a scion of the two great English . Catholic houses of Norfolk and .Shrewsbury. His territorial connection with 'Scotland was due to his father, the first Baron, having many years ago purchased the Highland property of Dorlin from his bro-ther-in-law, Mr. James Hope Scott. Mr. Hope Scott, the life-long friend of Cardinals Manning and Newman, and one of the most distinguished converts who followed Newman into the Catholic Church, made a large fortune at the Parliamentary Bar, and acquired the estate of Dorlin with the wish of /benefiting what was then, and still is, one of the,most Catholic districts in the Western Highlands. As owner, through his first wife, of historic Abbotsford, he was also a munificent benefactor to the Church in the - 'Tvveedside country. The peer just deceased,

who enjoyed the family honors and estates for more than twenty years, has been described in the press as "one of the most prominent Catholic laymen." Nothing could be further from the fact, as he took no part whatever in Catholic public life, and was utterly unknown to the vast majority of Catholics in Scotland. His son, who now succeeds him, and who is happily married, with a growing family, is well known as an excellent Catholic; and it is hoped and expected that he will take the place formerly held by his distinguished grandfather as one of the leading lay Catholics in Britain. * * * The Call of Alaska—A priest for 50 years, founder and apostle of St. Mary's, Akularak, Father Joseph M. Treca, S.J., is venerated as their patriarch by his spiritual children in this wild country (writes Father John L. Luchesi, S.J., in The Lamp. As you see him in the picture (clothed in the common dress of this snow clad region), you may see him in Alaska, ready to square his back to the burden of the next duty. "There is nothing in it for you," you might tell him. "But there is everything in it for God," he will answer. "Times are not better now than when we came pioneering more than thirty years ago. Father Treca is 70, and I am 66. Storm and sleet and cold intense and terrible, days and nights on the road for months at a time are our portion to-day." "It is a young man's work," you may tell Father Treca. "But it is God's work, too," he will answer; so he is glad of a. share in it, and would do the hardest part if you did not watch him. He fears one thing. And I do. too. That the reins will fall from our hands before younger, stronger hands have taken them up. Come, you who would serve the Lord. Souls are waiting to he won by you. * * * Dublin's Origin.—Of late there has been a good deal of pressure brought to bear on the Government to start the rebuilding of the Four Courts. Of course .it is all a question of finance. One estimate for the rebuilding put the cost at a million pounds. In this connection it is of .interest to know that the foundation stone of the Four Courts was laid in 1786. The work took fourteen years to complete and the cost was £200,000. * The Four Courts are built on the site of the first Priory of the Order of St. Dominic. This was built in the year 1224, just three years after the death of St. Dominic. "The Ford of the Hurdles," fiaile Atha Cliath, from which the town takes its name, is supposed to have been situated close to where Whitworth Bridge now stands and to have led to the roadway known now as Stoneybater. The latter formed part of one of the five great roads which intersected Ireland. The portion of Dublin where the Danish invaders settled was called after them Eastmann Town since corrupted into Oxmanstown. This is that part of Dublin near the Phoenix Park, a site once famous for its forest of oak. In an

ancient manuscript it is recorded that after St. Patrick converted the King of Dublin and his subjects to the faith he set out on his journey to Tara. Just outside the city he came on an eminence on which now stands the Broadstone Terminus, and looking back on the city he is said to have used these words—" This town will be prophetical. Although small and miserable it will he a large town m the time that is to come. It will be told and spoken of far and near and will be increasing until it is the chief town in the Kingdom." * * * A Catholic Proconsul.— Sir Hugh Charles Clifford, who leaves England shortly to take over the Governorship of Ceylon, is a grandson of the seventh Lord Clifford, head of one of the staunchest of the old English Catholic families. Lord Cliffard had the rare distinction of being son-in-law to a Cardinal Thomas Weld of Lulworth, who took Orders after his wife's death, and was raised to the purple in 1830. His second son was the well-known Bishop William Clifford of Clifton, who died some thirty years ago; and another son was Domestic Prelate to' Pius IX. There is a certain fitness in the appointment of a Catholic as Governor of a Colony in which the Catholic Church has perhaps made more rapid progress than in any part of the Empire. According to recent statistics, in a Christian population of about 380,000, the Catholics number fully 300,000. The British Government, in the'first' administration of Mr. Gladstone, performed an act of justice by disestablishing the Anglican Church in the island, whose adherents numbered barely 30,000. Some years later Sir West Ridgeway became Governor of Ceylon and received an address of welcome from the Protestant clergy, who enlarged at some length on their efforts to Christianise the Cingalese people. Sir West (himself an Anglican) disconcerted his hearers, in his speech of acknowledgment, by expressing his astonishment that in their account of the mission work in the island they had ignored the Christian body—viz., the Catholic Church—whose clergy had done more for the conversion of the natives than all the Protestant sects put together. All the" bishops in Ceylon are members of regular Orders, including Benedictines, Jesuits, . and Oiblates of Mary Immaculate. The clergy number between two and three hundred, and are assisted by a large number of religious Communities.