People

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 17, 24 April 1902, Page 10

People

On the occasion of the coronation of King Alfonso XIII. of Spain the Pope will send as a present to the monarch a magnificent mosaic representing the basilica of St. Peter. The newly-appointed assistant to the Bishop of Ratis/bon, Germany, who was consecrated on the feast of St. Mathias 1 , will probably have the shortest name in the Catholic hierarchy. He is the Right Rev. Baron Ow, and received the titular see of Arethusa. A police court in Birnbaum, province of Posen, Prussian Poland, fined the distinguished Catholic organist, Filipowski, thirty marks a few weeks ago, for the crime of training the children of a parochial school to sing a Polish hymn in the parish church. Mr. Charles Santley, wiho has entered upon his 69th year, was born at Liverpool. The great baritone singer made his first public appearance 45 years ago. His first great success was in the opera ' Dinorah,' and his fame soon spread to Australia and South Africa. He married a granddaughter of George Kemble. There were in Scotland last year 28,3 06 persons who spoke Gaelic and no other language), and 202,700 who spoke Gaelic and English. The inhabitants who spoke Gaelic and English alone are, of course, almost exclusively confined to the remote Highland districts, but there is a large Celtic bi-lingual population in the Lowland centres. A committee has been formed in Rome to erect there a statue to Shakespeare. Another committee has been formed to erect a Dante memorial 1 , and it is proposed to unveil the statues of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Dante at the same time and to invite the Kaiser and King Edward to the ceremonies. The New York ' Commercial Advertiser ' produces from Father Strada's ' Prolusions Academical,' published in Rome in 1617, an actual description of wireless telegraphy, and asserts that the describer must be credited its first inventor. Empress Eugenie's private secretary says the Empress's memoirs 1 probably will not be published until ten years after her death, by testamentary orders. At any rate, they never will be while she lives. Three octavo volumes have been completed, bringing tho work down to 1870 and the real causes of the Franco-Prussian war. Three experts are kept sorting papers and making extracts from secret official documents in Paris. The Empress has kept all her letters ever since January 30th, 1853, the date of her marriage with Napoleon 111. William J. Onahan, one of tho leading Catholic laymen of the United States, has succeeded to the office of president of the Home Savings Bank of Chicago. Mr. Onahan was born in Ireland and went to America in 1852. He has been prominent in Chiurch organisations and has done much to promote their success. He has been City Controller, City Collector, and a member of the Public Library Board. Prior to his election as president of the bank Mr. Onahan was vice-president. Lord Llandaff, who is now 76 years of age, will be better recalled and recognised under his old name of Mr. Hetnry Matthews, Q C , Home Secretary in Lord Salisbury's second Government of 1886-92.' He made his first appearance in Parliament in tho sixties as member of the now disfranchised borough of Du,ngarvan. Lord Llandaff is a Catholic, and enjoys the reputation of being the most learned lay canonist of hia time.

Baron Cramer Klett, who is to marry Princess Clara of Bavaria, is a Protestant, but he has devoted immense sums of money to the purchase of old-time abbeys and monasteries from lay owners and after having placed them in thorough repair, restored them to the monastic Orders to which they originally belonged. Thus he has just presented to the Benedictine Order the famous old Abbey of Wessobrunn, near Weilheim. which for a hundred years has been in the possession of laymen, but which is the oldest monastic building in all Southern Germany, certain portions of it dating back to the eighth century. It is estimated that this gift ta the Benedictine Order cost the Baron nearly a million marks. The Baron is the richest man in Bavaria. The Right Hon Christopher Palles,, Lord Chief Baron of Ireland, was born in 1831 at Little Mount Palles, Cavan, and is the son of Andrew Christopher Palles. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College and Trinity College, Dublin ; became an Irish barrister in 1853 ; Q.ueen'B Counsel in 1865 •.;' Solicitor-General in 1872 ; Attorney-General, 18721874, and has been Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland since 1874. He has never been in th« House of Commons, and virtually refused the Great Seal of Ireland from Mr. Gladstone, declining to modify his opposition to Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule policy. He is a Liberal Unionist, and strongly) opposed to the Nationalist movement, but he is regarded as the greatest Irish lawyer of his time, and the Nationalists unanimously supported an amendment proposed by Mr. Dillon in Committee on the Irish Judicature Bill of 1897, that the Lord Chief Baron should take precedence in the newly-constituted Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland of the Lord Chief Justice. A story is told which shows that in the days when he was younger Lord Kosebery was already a humorist of parts, says the 'People's Friend.' Ho wanted a new hat, and wont into a great Oxford street) establishment to b,uy one. While he stood bare-headed waiting to be fitted a bfshop entered on the same errand, and mistook the Earl for one of the shop assistants. ' Have you a hat like this ? ' he asked, showing him his own extraordinary headgear. The future Prime Minister took it from him and examined it critically before he remarked*— ' No,' he replied at length. ' I haven't got a hat like that, and if 1 had I'm blest if I should wear it.' The architect of the Westminster Cathedral is dead. Mr. Bentley's death will be a great blow to Cardinal Vaughan. The architect was closely following every detail of the structure of the new Westminster Cathedral, and his advice was asked for at every point. It will be necessary to gild the ceiling and walls with mosaic, but now they will halve to bo undertaken by other hands. They will certainly afford the greatest opportunity for mosaic work that has been presented to English artists since Sir W. Richmond began his designs for St. Paul's Cathedral.