People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 18, 30 April 1903, Page 10

People We Hear About

Major Jameson, who has just been expelled from the ranks of the Irish Parliamentary Party, is one of the three military members amongst the Nationalists. He was in the 18th Royal Irish and in two Hussar regiments. Captain Donelan, the Irish Whip, was a soldier and the son of a soldier, his father having been a colonel. Colonel Nolan gained his rank in the Artillery.

The Earl of Fingall, one of the four Earls who accompanied the Duke of Norfolk to the Eternal City on the occasion of the English pilgrimage in connection with the Jubilee celebrations, is always at home is Rome, where he was born. He has claims to hospitality in many countries, for, while he was born in Italy, the family comes from Denmark, he enjoys an Irish earldom, and a barony of the United Kingdom. His father was born in Naples, and his grandfather in Geneva, so that the birthplaces of the Plunketts have been as fairly disr tributed as they well could be. Lord Fingall is the premier Catholic baron of Ireland, as the Duke of Norfolk is of England.

Mr. Daniel Meagher, formerly manager of the Lake View Extended and Golden Pike Mines, Western Australia, died recently in Kalgoorlie from pneumonia. The deceased, who was one of trie oldest mine managers on the field, was a native of Nova Scotia, and a nephew of Thomas Francis Meagher, one of the leaders of the Young Ireland Movement in 1847, who afterwards fought in the American Civil War as commander of an Irish brigade with the Northern army at the battle of Gettysburg. Mr. Charles Santley. the well-known English baritone, is just 69, having been bora in Liverpool In 1834. At the age of 21 he went to Milan and studied with Gaetano Naro. Manuel Garcia also taught him on his return to London, and his first appearance was at St. Martin's Hall as Adam in the ' Creation ' on November 16, 1857. Two years later his rendering of Hod in ' Dinorah ' at Covent Garden brought him nis first great success. In 1862 he first sang in Italian opera in '11 Trovatore/ winning high praise from the critics. Mr. Santley visited Australia in 1889-90, and the Cape in 1893. He takes an active interest in the Catholic choirs of the Metropolis.

The late Dr. Bilsborrow, whilst at Barrow, had as a neighbor the late Duke of Devonshire, who occasionally resided at his seat of Holker Hall, not far away. The Duke seems to have had a decided esteem for Father Bilsborrow, of whom a characteristic anecdote is related. He called at Holker to solicit the Duke for some aid in his new mission. ' And how many people have you got ? ' asked the Duke. The answer came prompt and exact, ' 535.' The priest had just completed an accurate census of his people. The Duke was delighted with the reply, declaring that many ministers of religion came to him with similar petitions, but never could tell him with anything like accuracy the number of their flock. ' I see you know your people individually,' he added. The result of the interview was substantial assistance and a long-continued mutual esteem and respect.

' One of the funniest experiences of the travelling politician 1 have ever heard of (says a writer in'M.A.P.') was that which happened to Mr. John Dillon during a tour many years ago in America. Mr. Dillon, it will be known, has a very light frame, is very delicate, and though he is of a very equable nature, with deep dark eyes, with his beard and hair, which, now turning gray, were a few years ago black as the raven's wing, he looks rather melancholy, though, as a matter of fact, he has one of the most equable tempers I have ever know"n. He and the late Mr. Parnell appeared once together on a platform in America. There was a threatened famine in Ireland. When the meeting was over, the chairman took Mr. Dillon by the hand, and with tears in his eyes said : " Ah, Mr. Dillon, when I heard Parnell speak I was not moved. There, I said to myself, is an aristocrat who knows nothing of suffering ; but when you, Mr. Dillon, got up, I shed tears. There, I said to myself, is a man who has known hunger. He has hunger in his face ! " Mr. Dillon tells the story still with much delight.'

The ' St. James's Gazette ' recalls an interesting episode in the early career of Cardinal Vaughan, which is not very widely known : — Cardinal Vaughan, though he has probably almost forgotten the incident in the Btrenuousnesa of the life he has lived since, was once arrested in America. It was 40 years ago, when the future Cardinal was begging from door to door the means to build a college in London. At Panama Dr. Vaughan, who had gone on his mission with the approval and sympathy of Cardinal Wiseman, found the people dying in hundreds of smallpox and fever, and the situation brought about by a revolution just ended made intervention politically as well as physically perilous. The President had banished the priests who would not take the oath to the new Constitution, and had made the administration of the Sacraments a criminal offence. In spite of this, however, the young English priest attended the dying people in their last hours, and the end of Dr. Vaughan's experiences in Panama was that he was arrested and "brought before the Court, which convicted him, but released him on heavy bail.