People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 37, 10 September 1903, Page 10

People We Hear About

The death is announced of Mr, Denis Lane, proprietor and editor of the ' Universe,' who passed away at an advanced age, much regretted, as he was widely esteemed by a wide circle of friends and the Catholic public at large.

Cardinal Oreglia, the Cardinal Camer lingo, is- a native of Piedmont and is seveaty-five years of age. Ha made his early studies with the Jesuits at Turin, and two of his brothers joined the Order. One of them helped to found the • Civiita Cattolica. 1 The Cardinal has been Internuncio at The Hague and Nuncio at Brussels' and Lisbon.

Cardinal Rampolla, who was Secretary of State to Leo XIII., is about sixty years of age. A member of a noble Sicilian family, he is of tall, straight, and wellproportioned figure, with black hair streaked with grey, ityrk complexion, and mild dark eyes, to which drooping eyelids give a pensive expression. His step is firm and elastic, in spite of a somewhat nervous temperament.

Prince Napoleon Victor Jerome Frederic, head of the House of Bonaparte, kept his forty-first birthday on July 18, as his* brother, Prince Napoleon Louis Joseph Jerome, kept his thirty-ninth a few days previously. Both are still bachelors, and the only other man Who now bears the name of Bonaparte is Prince Roland, who is a widower of forty-five with a daughter for his only child.

To the surprise of his fellow-members, Mr. Healy has appeared in the House of Commons in a new silk hat. He has told a correspondent of the ' Leinster Leader ' the history of the old hat, with which M.P.s have grown lamiliar. ' After the fight in the House of Commons in 1893,' he said, ' the Mayor and Corporation of Alexandria, Louisiana, cabled to me that, reading that my hat was broken in the melee, they had voted me a new hat and hat-case out of the public funds, and requested me to cable the size of my head. They then sent me a new hat, which I undertook, in acknowledging the gift, to wear to the utmost limits. The result is that I have been wearing a shabby hat, and I have been so joked about it that, after 10 years' wear, with many a pang at parting with an old friend, I decided to discard the gift.'

Ireland's great astronomer, Sir Robert Ball, has just celebrated his sixty-third birthday. He has been astronomical Professor at Cambridge for a decade, but was attached for many years to- the public observatory in County Dublin. On the platform Sir Robert is immensely popular and attracts very large audiences in all parts of the country by his witty and fluent lectures on the science of the stars. His career as an astronomer dates back to 1865, when, shortly after leaving Trinity College, Dublin, he was placed in charge of the famous private observatory established by the Earl of Rosse at Birr, King's County. Sir Robert is renowned for his happy and humorous comparisons between the celestial and the terrestrial. When the possibility of signalling to Mars was under discussion, he pointed out that if a flag of the size of Ireland was waved from a pole to match, there was just the ghost of a chance that an astronomical Martian might perceive the ghost of a flutter on the earth.

Cardinal Gibbons celebrated his 69th birthday on July 23. His lEminence, who is now in Rome, was born in Baltimore of Irish parents on July 23, 1834, but was taken to Ireland to be educated. On his return to America he studied at St. Charles' College, Maryland, where he graduated with high honors in 1857. He was ordained a priest at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, in 1861. He was consecrated a Bishop in 1868 and was installed Archbishop of Baltimore ten years later. In March, 1878, he received the red hat. On February 10 Jtast the Cardinal celebrated quietly the silver jubilee of his archbishopric. Although nearing the allotted three score and ten years and of frail physique, the Cardinal is a man of great vigor and possessed of excellent health. His unfailing good humor has not been impairekl by his years.