People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 52, 29 December 1904, Page 10

People We Hear About

Among the Pope's treasures (says an exchange) is an egig w[hich he received fr-om an English lady one Easteir. The shell is ma<de of ijvory, its lining is of white satin, and the yolk is a golden case containing a large ruby set in diamonds ; the whole is worth upwards of £2000.

T;he IlMn. A. Wilmot, late Postmaster-General of Caipe Colopy and a memiher of the Legislative CcHuncil, C)d|pti Town, has been appointed a Camcriore "di C'appa di S|?ad a tio 'his Holiness. Mr. Wilmot has long taken a deep interest in Catholic affairs, and the Rigjit Rev. Dr. McSherry, Bishop of Jusitmianopolis, and VioarApoetlolLc of the Eastern District of the Cape of G|oiod Hjope in hivS- religious work has had amongst t|he laity ■no miore qnergetic or more influential sUppprter thap the new, Papal Chiamberlain.

Mrs. Humphrey Ward, novelist, is a colonial, She was born a>t Hobart, Tasmania, June 11, 1,851. It was at Oxford, with which her husband was associate^, tihat Mrs. Wand began her literary work. Her earliest original work was fri the form of critical articles contributed to ' Mlacmillan's Maigaz.ine ' and to the ' Pall Mall ' when under Mr. Miorley's control. Of all her numerous hooks none has attained such popularity as ' Robert Elsmore,' isslued in 1888. Over half a million copies ha,ve been sold in America alone.

It is over half a century since Florence Nightingale •and 'her band of nurses sailed iroin London for tihe Crimea. Sifice than her name has been a synonym for wiomainly tenderness and fdevotion to the relief of the soldiers' sufferings. The present generation khows little of the horrors endured by the British soldiers in the Crimean campaign. Blundering incompetence has rarely inflicted greater suffering on its iheJpless victims. T hings were -at their worst when Florence Nightingale: wont out to organise the work of nursing the British sick ajnd wiounileti. She did it thoroughly, and witfh a completeness that used up all her energy and stTemgth, for si/nee her return to England over forty years ag,o has lived practically the life of an invalid. Hero wias a gpod s'toy of Gladstone, who was fotnid of loitering around the second-hand hook-s6i'<?.p windows, and fingering the voliumes Which were thus displayed. If he ipkßed 'up a book tihat interested him, he frequently became qiui/te oblivious to his surroundings. On one of these occasions a loafer, who ntust have aarefully studied Mr. Gladstone's habits, whislpered Quietly : ' HUlf a cr.own, please, sir.' Without raising his eyas; from the hook, Mr. Gladstone put his hand into his pocket and handed over tihe half-crown. A few minutes late"r he was going off witti his prize, when the bookseller, who knew him well by sight, stopjpqd him with ttfie demand for tfne s<hilli.nfc, tihe price of t*he boo/k. ' But I haive already given ypu half a crown,' said Mr. Gladstone, .md explanations followed.

■ Sir Francis William Brady, Bart , i« to be addejd to the somewitiat long list of public men who 'have survival tflieir owta obituaries. When Sir T. Francis Brady, who spon't a generation as Inspector ot Irish Fisheries, died lecently quite a number of provincial newspapers fell into the errlor of confusing him with the other Sir Francis. '1 he surviving Sir Francis is that somewhat uittsfinal combination, a K.C., a musician, and a poet. Hibsi was tjhe special version of ' Come back to Eri,n ' which was written for the departure of the King and Queen from Ireland. Called to the Bar some eiglit-and-fifty years ago, he took silk in 1860. He is a Colmty Gaurt Ja'dge and chairman of Quarter Sessions for Tyrone, and at two mdnths over eiglity still practises at the Bar

T:he last week in October aaw the completion of the greatest engineering work ever attempted or accomplished iln the way of nailroad tunnel line:- Tn the opening of the New Y<or*k subway for paibli'c service the triumph of (human skill ana energy over the most formidable obstiacles, natural and artificial, that have ever been faeeld, is signally denronstirated. The tunnel, or tunnels, begf. .n in March, 1000, extend a length of twenty-two mile*?'. Tio 1 fnii the boring completed and the etatire lime equipped fbr perfect railway service in so short a perijoid as tour years and a half is a fact to fill the mind with wodider and admiration. This new wonder ol tjhe world is, moreover, nrore wonderful still ita the fact that it is the work of one man — ojie master mind directing tfie minds and hands of many. An humble Irishman, one of the peasant class, who had never had the advamtlage of a scientific training, is the master of fihis great tunnel. His was the brain to cdrice?ve it and w/ork out the problem of its oohstTMctioh to the lajst detail. This man's name— Macrionald—w ill go dowm to history as one fit to rank with the 1 greatest of the world's emgkieers.

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