People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 34, 20 August 1903, Page 10

People We Hear About

Bishop Gibney, of Perth, celebrated recently the fortieth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. He received numerous congratulations.

The late Mr. T. W. Allies, whose death was reported in our last issue, was the first to gain the Newcastle Scholarship. Ten years ago he received from his Holiness Leo XIII. the high distinction of ' the gold medal for merit.'

Lord Northcote, who has been appointed GovernorGeneral of Australia in succession to Lord Tennyson, has been Governor of Bombay since 1899, and is the first Baron Northcote, having been raised to the Peerage under that title in 1887. He is the second son of the Earl of Iddesleigh, who was better known as Sir Stafford Northcote, and as the leader in the House of Commons under Lord Beaconsfield. Baron Northcote is 57 years of age, and was married to the adopted daughter of the first Baron Mount Stephen in 1873.

By the death of the Pope (says the Tasmanian ' Monitor ') the Archbishop of Hobart becomes the Nestor of the Episcopate of the world. God has indeed granted to him the crown of lengthened years. Though so far advanced in age his Grace is hale and hearty. There is no marked feebleness in his step ; there is no cessation in his episcopal work ; he is still in harness; and working as he did twenty years ago. It is only a few weeks ago since he returned from a trip round the West Coast. A trip there is one that even younger men undertake with much hesitancy in mid-winter. But his Grace returned invigorated by his journey and he has not been for years in such good health.

Wednesday next, August 26, will be the 20th anniversary of the consecration of the Most Rev. Dr. Carr as Bishop of Galway. His Grace is now in his 64th year, having been born in Galway in 1840. He studied at St. Jarlath's College and Maynooth, and was ordained priest in 1866. After spending a few years in missionary work in his native diocese his Grace was in 1870 appointed Professor of Rhetoric in St. Jarlath's College. A few years later he became dean in Maynooth, then Professor of Theology, and eventually vice-president of that College. In August, 1883, Dr. Carr was consecrated Bishop of Galway, having been during the previous three years editor of the ' Irish Ecclesiastical Record' Three years later he was appointed to succeed the late Dr. Goold as Archbishop of Melbourne, where he arrived in June of the next year.

The honorary Degrees of Doctor of Laws and Doctor of Music were conferred, on June 24, at the Albert Hall, London, on their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales respectively by the University of London. Amongst those who weie presented for degrees was the Rev. H. J. Irwin, S J , of Stonyhurst College, who has carried of! the crow nine: honor of the Doctorate of Literature. For this he has been preparing by a brilliant career at the University, of which he was already a double M.A., in classics and philosophy. His further studies were in the direction of economics, and the work which has won for him the D. Lit is an Essay on Usury. Out of some dozen who have achieved a like success at the University of London, Stonyhurst can claim Iwo, the second being Father Michael Maher, whtTse work on Psychology is long established as a standard authority.

... It is, says an Indian contemporary, a widespread error that M. Combes is an ex-priest, that he once received Holy Orders and belonged to the Catholic clergy. The truth is that M. Combes ne\er received any ordination whatever, not even the tonsure, but because at one time he wore the cassock, as a student of the great seminary at Albi, he is called ' Abbe ' after the French fashion. He was born on September 6. 1835, of poor parents, at Roquecourbe in the South of France. The good parish priest gave in his leisure hours Latin and Greek lessons to the poor, but no* untalented, boy. On the recommendations of this good priest the boy was afterwards received gratuitously in the small seminary of Castres. Afterwards in the great seminary at Albi he was received ' gratuitement.' Through the kindness of the Assumptionist Fathers at Nimes he was appointed professor at their small seminary. Later he was offered the hospitality of the Carmelite Fathers at Paris, who put him in a position to continue his studies at the University of Paris, where he obtained his Licentiate.