People We Hear About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 6, 8 February 1900, Page 21

People We Hear About.

Major-General Kelly-Kenny, C.8., who has command of a division of the British force in South Africa, is :>') years of age, having joined the army when only is. He serve.! in the campaign of 18(10 in North China, and was mentioned in despatches and received the medal and clasp. In the Abyssinian campaign he commanded a transport train division. He was again mentioned in despatches for •zeal, energy, aa.l abililj ,' an 1 icouwl the ca.mp.aign racial. He has since held m tny important appointments. He became InspectorGeneral of Auxiliaiy FutGu-i ami lit oi jili'ig ia ISU7, and on October D last he was appointed to the command of the Aldershot district in succession to Sir Redvers Bullcr.

It is rather strange that neither Bacon, Newton, Locke, Davy, nor Stuart Mill left a son to inherit hib fame, while of historians, Hume, Gibbon, and Macaulay were never married. Amongst our great painters, Reynolds, Lawrence, and the great Lord Leighton were bachelors. Hogarth perpetrated a romantic love match, which was fruitless, and Turner, the great magician of colour and canvas, twice soured by early disappointments, never married. Handel, who may almost be claimed as an Englishman, had no wife but his art. Davy Garrick and John Kemble died childlesp, and the direct male issue of Edmund Kean ended with the death of his son Charles.

Mr. Alan McLean, who has succeeded Sir George Turner, is the fourth Catholic Premier of Victoria. Sir John O'Shannassy was the first, and he thrice held the position. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, who had been a colleague of O'Shannassy's, was the next. Later on Sir Brian O'Loghlen formed a Ministry, in which he was Prime Minister, Treasurer, and Attorney-General. The present Premier is a Scotchman, whilst all his Catholic predecessors have been Irishmen. Mr. McLean was formerly a member of the Ministry which he has ousted. New South Wales has had two Catholic Premiers — Sir Patrick Jennings and the Right Hon. W. B. Dalley — who was acting Premier and virtual head of the Government formed by Sir Alexander Stuart. Queensland lost her only Catholic Premier— the Hon. T. J. Byrnes— after a too brief occupancy. His early death was mourned as a national loss.

A recent cable message to the Australian newspapers announced the death of Mr. John Foster Vesey Fitzgerald, who was intimately associated with the early history of Victoria. He was the second son of John Leslie Foster, Baron of the Irish Court of Exchequer, by his marriage with the Hon. Letitia Vesey Fitzgerald, a sister of Lord Fitzgerald and Vesci, and under the terms of the will of his uncle, Lord Fitzgerald, he adopted the purnames of Vcacy and Fitzgerald. After graduating at the Dublin University ne came to Port l'hillip in 1841, and in ISI7 lie was elected one of the representatives of Port Phillip in the old Legislative Council of New South Wales. He acted as Administrator of the Government between the departure of Mr. La Trobe and the arrival of Sir Charles Hothatn in IS">4. He sat as member for Williamstown in the first Victorian Parliament, and was a member of the tirbt 0 Shannassy Ministry. He was a cousin of the late Chief Justice Stawell, and of Mr. Justice Foster, of Sydney. Mr. Fitzgerald, who was S2 years of age. returned to England over forty years ago.

Mgr. Donato Sbarretti, Auditor of the Apostolic Delegation in Washington, D.C., who has been appointed Bishop of Havana, waa born in Italy in 1856 and belongs to a distinguished Roman family. The death has just occurred at Liverpool of Mr. Hubert O'Grady, the well-known actor. He was on a private visit to a friend and contracted a chill, which developed into pneumonia. Deceased who was SS, was a native of Limerick, and started life as an upholsterer, lie soon took to the stage, where he acquired a reputation a<* a depicter of Irish character. For years he had toured in hi^ own dramas, also visiting America and Australia.

On WVdnpiday. November 29. Mi<w Mary F Nivon \vr<a married to Dr. Alfred Roulet. of St. Loui=>, at ' Willowmere,' Kirkwood, Mo , tlv ri-M<len<-e of the bride* aunt, A* the bride and jjronm are both convert and all of their families, except Mrs. Isabel Nixon Whiteley. the bride's sister, are Pr..teßtante. Archbishop Kain very kindly gave a ppocial dispensation for them to be married at home, the first dispensation he has given for two Catholics since his elevation to the See of St. Louis. MiBS Nixon is well known to Catholics as the assistant editor of Church Protj resx, of St. Lonis, and a frequent writer for Arc Maria and other Catholic magazines. She is the author of With a Pessimist in Spain, Lasca, A Harp of Many Chord.*, and the charming child's story, The Blue Lady's KnigM Dr. Roulet is a talented young physician who is surgeon at St. Mary's Infirmary in St. Louis, and he is also an excellent artist, having designed the covers and illustrations for several of hia wife s books, as well as for the new edition of For the French Ldics, by Isabel Nixon Whiteley. Dr. Roulet and his wife have settled in St. Louis, right in the midst of the doctor's practice, in order that Mrs. Roulet may help her husband in his work among the poor.

Lovers of popular literature (says the Catholic Times) will regret to learn that Mr. John Augustus 0' Shea, the distinguished Irish litterateur, is, aa a result of a paralytic seizure two years ago, now a confirmed invalid and completely incapacitated from pursuing his literary work. Accordingly it has been decided to issue an appeal for funds to provide a small annuity for Mr. O'Shea to assist him in the evening of his varied and brilliant career. For many years Mr. O'Shea acted as war correspondent for the Standard newspaper, being through the Franco-German war, the Carlist cifmpaign in Spain, and other expeditions. He was present in Paria during the historic siege, and recorded his impressions in an interesting volume entitled An Ironhound City. His Leaven from the Life of a Special Correspondent is a fascinating record of many memorable events he witnessed in the three Continents. Mr. O'Shea is also the author of Roundabout Recollections, Romantic Spain, and Military Mosaic*, as well as several works of fiction, but he has not derived any income from his publications for several years. In recent years he devoted himself to miscellaneous literary work, which, however, he has now been compelled to completely relinquish. Mr. O'Shea's disablement is unhappily permanent, but it is confidently hoped that the many friends and admirers of 'The Gineral ' and the ' Irish Bohemian ' will generously provide means to alleviate the misfortune which has fallen on a genial and truehearted Irishman. The movement for providing an annuity is under the patronage of the Marquis of Lome, K.T., G.C.M.G., Lord Glenesk, Lord Charles Beresford, Very Rev. Canon Murnane, V.G., Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P.. Mr. Thomas Catling, Mr. P. W. Joyce, L.L.D.. Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., Mr. W. M. Crook, Mr. Aaron Watson, J.P.. Mr. Charles Williams, and Mr. W. H. Massingham.