People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 30, 23 July 1903, Page 10

People We Hear About

Mr. Andrew Carnegie's cheque for £300,000 for the erection of a Temple of Peace at The Hague has been received by the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs.

i™. T £ ce A late John B °y le O'Reilly left a daughter, Miss Elizabeth Boyle O'Reilly, who inherits a good deal of Her father's genius. She has a first volume of her verses in the press.

Mr. Allied Austin, the Poet Laureate, is just 68. He was educated at Stonyhurst and St. Mary's College. . Oscott from which latter school he took his degree in io° fl « :i V H l was called to the Bar and Practised till 1869, when he published his second book, ' The Season ; a Sauriv' and embarked on a literary career. In 1896 .he w.ts appointed Poet Laureate.

t I:I :S * !! ° llness Leo XIII., by Pontifical Brief, has conferred the hereditary rank and title of Roman Count on ' A c 9 ( V^l7,» Olu ' of the King's Lieutenants for. London. Count O Clery, who is a- private chamberlain of high rank at thr» Vatican, received the knighthood of St. Gregory the Great (military cross) for his services during 1867 and 1870 in the Corps d'Elite of the Pontifical Zouaves.

A bronze monument is being erected in New York to the memory of the late Dr. Brownson, whose centenary occurs this year. The learned doctor was born in 1803, and ordained a minister of the Scottish kirk in 1825. i wenty years later he became a convert to the Catholic Church, and at once established • Brownson 's Quarterly Review ' for the purpose of spreading and defending her doctrines. His published works fill 19 volumes. Dr. Brownson died in 1876.

A London Radical journalist points out that in 1878 he compiled the following list as the ' Twelve Eminent Radicals in Parliament : William Ewart Gladstone, John Bright, Peter Alfred Taylor, Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, Joseph Cowen, Sir Wilfred Lawson, Henry Fawcett, Joseph Chamberlain, Thomas Burt, Henry Richard, Leonard Henry Courtney, and Anthony John Mundella. Of these seven have ' joined the majority ' in another sphere ; while of the remaining five Sir Charles Dilke long since recanted the ' scatterbrained principles ' of his youth, and Joseph Chamberlain is the smuggest member of the Tory party.

At San Silvestro in Capite, on May 23 .(writes a Rome correspondent), the Very Rev. William Whitmce, Keel .; o' the church, blessed the marriage of the Nobile da Pozza and Miss Cargi]], a Dunedin lady, resident in Rome. The chancel of the church where the nuptial Mass was celebrated was beautifully decorated with plants, marguerites, etc. An unusual feature of the ceicmony, which gave great satisfaction, was a Musical accompaniment of beautiful violin solos, which the Rev E. Zepf, Vice-Rector of the church, most kindly rendered. Mr an-i Mrs. Da Pozzo are spending their honeymoon at Verice.

A cable message received last week stated that a Civil List pension of £250 has been granted Mr. Justin McCarthy, the distinguished historian and novelist. Mr. McCarthy, who is in his 74th year, has just finished a volume of personal sketches on ' British Political Leaders,' and is now engaged on another volume, ' Portraits of the Sixties,' and is carrying his ' History of Our Own Times ' a stage further, and, like Shamus Oi'Brien, he once carried a pike. That was in 1848, but the fate of the rebel did not befall him, as the ' rising,' Avhich had been arranged for in Cork, did not take place owing to some mistake about the signal on the appointed night. 'It is almost a pity that he cannot be hanged for high treason,' wrote T. P. O'Connor, 'to show how calmly a quiet man could die in Ireland.' Thirty years after Mr. McCarthy re-entered Irish' politics, taking his seat in Parliament as member for Longford in 1879. Ten years ago he was chairman of the Irish Party, and few know of the true value of the services he rendered in that stormy period. The patience and dignity, the sacrifice of personal objects, the sweetness of temper and long suffering of trial he exhibited in those years give him, as was well expressed at the time, claims impossible to over-estimate on the attachment and devotion of his countrymen.