People we Near About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 23, Issue 47, 23 November 1899, Page 21

People we Near About.

Count Clary, who, a few weeks a?o, was entrusted with the formation of a new ministry in Austria, is of Irish descent. His ancestors were among the ' Wild Geese ' who left Ireland for the Continent after the battle of Limerick. The public, no less than the immediate personal friends of Mr' Justin M'Carthy, M.P., the eminent writer, will regret to learn that it has been found necessary to perform another operation on his eyes, which everybody will join in hoping will completely restore his sight. Away up in the wild, mountainous part of the great north-west of Canada, on the sixtieth parallel, where the winter cold is almost as keen and unrelenting as on the goldfields of Alaska, lies Athabaska-Mackenzie. This wild region has as bishop the Right Rev. Dr. Clut, 0.M.1., who is better known by the title of ' Bishop of the North Pole.' It is told how this saintly old man — he carries the weight of 70 years quite jauntily on his shoulders — jonrneys over his wide, wild desolate, diocese, eating of the meagrest and most scanty fare, and sleeping in huts as he goes. Admiral Dewey is the hero of the hour in the United States at the present time. A good story comes from Boston which tells of the gallant admiral's popularity. One of the religious orators who infest the Common, which is the Hyde Park of that intellectual city, appealed to a sympathetic anti-Catholic crowd on a Sunday recently, asking them to choose ' salvation or damnation — the King James's Bible or the Douay Bible.' He was somewhat disappointed when his intelligent audience, not knowing one from the other, shouted ' Hooray for the Dewey Bible 1' Such is fame. Mr. John Ignatius Hunt, who contributes to the Sydney Freeman's Journal the column headed ' Acta Populi,' under the norn de plume of ' The Flaneur,' is undoubtedly the raciest paragraphist in Australia. The SydDey letter, contributed to many country newspapers in New South Wales by Mr. Hunt, forms by far the most attractive reading in those journals, and has done much towards increasing their circulation. He is a very fine organist, but finds little time to exercise that accomplishment. In his youth he gave promise of earning a big reputation on the race-course as a jockey. Literature, however, proved the more fascinating occupation. Frequently, when supposed to be attending to the horses, he would be found embedded in the straw in a loose box, deeply engrossed in Walter Besant's French Humorists, or some such book.

Catherine Hayes was a Limerick lass, who possessed two rare gifts — personal beauty and great vocal power. When quite young her fame as a vocalist became world-wide. She sang in all the principal Continental citieß, in the United States, Australia, and California. For a time Bhe w&e prim a donna of a Milan, theatre. In lyric song, especially in some of Moore's melodies, she was probably at her best. We are pleased to hear (says the Universe") that a fine Celtic cross has been raised to her memory, and is to be placed upon the beautiful demesne of A dare. This great singer is well remembered by old colonists. She had a triumphant success in Australia over forty years ago. Very generous while she was ' coining money,' she died in poverty. While in Sydney Bhe gave £1000 to build a wing of the Rand wick Orphan School. A portrait of the benefactress hangs in the institution at the present day. The opposition of Kerry and Limerick, which contributed so largely to the defeat of the Bill for amalgamating railways in the South of Ireland; has (says M.A.P.) brought back to Westminster an Irishman, Mr. Pierce Mahony, once well-known on English platforms, and a popular member of the House. This is Mr. Mahony's first appearance at a Parliamentary Bar, and in his new career he will have the good wishes of many even of thoße who were politically opposed to him. He is a tall, striking-looking man in the middle period of life, with large, well-cut features, grey hair, and pointed beard of the type that Velasquez painted. Mr. Mahony 'b chief amusements are natural history and horticulture. He is an active member of the Council of the Zoological Society of Ireland, and he possesses a private collection of queer reptiles, whose performances are a source of entertainment to his friends at his picturesque house on the Howth Peninsula near Dublin. The Liverpool Catholic Times records the following noble instance of heroic devotion to duty on the part of a medical man : — 1 Dr. Reuben Ludlam, sen., President of the Hahnemann Medical College, was performing a critical operation at the college hospital — the removal of a large-sized tumor from a woman — when he cried out that he was weak and sank into a chair It was seen that he was dying, and on being removed to an adjoining room, despite the efforts of medical men who were summoned to his aid, death came quickly. But his son, Dr. Reuben Ludlam, jun., who had been assisting him in the operation, did not leave the patient. Having taking the instrument from his father's hand, he proceeded to excise the tumor. The operation was safely performed, and as the result of his selfsacrificing act the woman's life will, it is expected, be saved. But it was not till his father had been dead some twenty minutes that the young doctor was able to go to hia side. His deed strongly savours of SpartaD heroism.' It is, indeed, a fresh and noble example of courage from a profession which has given many evidences of heroism in the relief of human suffering.