People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 25, 22 June 1905, Page 10

People We Hear About

The Hon. W. P. Reeves, Agent-General for New Zealand in London, has been appointed High Commissioner tor the Colony. The eldest sister of the late John Augustus O'SheaMVhss Elizabeth O'Shea, won distinction in ,»the literary circles ot London, and atterwarus I>ecame tbe wife ot Judge Dillon, of India. Miss Marion O'Shea, his second sister, married Robert Barnell Roosevelt, ot Mew York, uncle of President Roosevelt. U-enerajT Collins, the stalwart Irish-American of Boston, who as Mayor, .welcomed Miss' Maud MacOarthy to that city on her tour| of America, has been a minen in the coalhelds of Ohio, an upholsterer,,- a lawyer, a legislator, a politician active, prominent, 'and successful in local, State, and national campaigns, the- president ot the National Democratic Convention ; four years a" Consul-General in London, a second term in the Mayoralty ot almost the oldest and certainly the proudest} ot American cities. He went to Boston a four-year-oHd b(oy, oti humble lite, in '4y. Miss Mancy Carnegie, niece of Mr Andrew Carnegie,, shocked the aristocratic* susceptibilities ofv some of her relatives by marrying an expert riding master, a young Irish Catholic, named James Hever. The multi-mil-lionaire and endower of libraries, when he heard of the marriage, remarked that, as Hever was a sober, moral young man, it was a better match for his mccc than if she had married ' a worthless duke.' The parties were married in a Catholic church in New York, and Mr. Carnegie gave them £5000 tor a start in iue and to enaibie them to go to Europe on a wedding trip. Mr. Haviland Burke, M.P., is one of the somewhat numerous" section of, the Irish Parliamentary Party wmch is uncompromisingly Irish in its politics and Protestant in its faith. Catholic interests find in him, as in Mr. Swatt MaoNeill, Capt. Donehan, and his; other tiMlow-Protestants, a stienuousj advocate, for Catholic interests in Ireland mean simply the interesis of the majority of the people. As the descendant ot the illustrious Edmund Burke, it is not surpiising that Mr. Haviland BurKe should , take a liberal and magnanimous \iew of the claims of his Catholic fel-low-countrymen. A man of Parnellite sympathies, he was one of the earliest supporters of the United Irish League when William O'Brien started .it in Connaught, and he is declared by his Iriena's, to be a man ot outstanding oratorical abilities. Amdrica now has three famous Jesuit novelists. One of them, lives in Chicago. Everybody knows Rev. F. J. Finn, and many know Rev. Henry S. Spalding, but Rev. J E. Copus, S.J., is the ,comiTig great Cajtholic novelist of the country. No first book ever ma3e such a hit as dkl his ' Harry Russell.' It was something new— full of incident, full of purpose, full of deft characterisation. The book came as a surprise, followed the next year by ' Saint Cuthbert's.' This, too, wasi judged phenomenally graphic. ' Shadows Lifted,' just published, is a distinct advance. Born and reared, at least in part, in England, Fail her Copus has been a journalist, an editor, a traveller, and is now a professor of English literature at St. Ignatius' College, Chicago. Dr. William Barry, who has just completed a life of Rcnan for the series of ' Literary Lives ' published by Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, and who is recognised as, one of the most brilliant writers in Engjband to-day, is, though born in England, a Celt ol the South-west of Ireland. He was educated at Oscott College in^ the daya of tho presidency of Dr. Spencer Northcote. Rome was the sceme of his higher studfes and ordination. On his return to England he occupied for a time the posts of Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Oscott College. He is the author of several novels, of which, perhaps, the best known is ' The New Antigone,' a romantic treatment of the problems of Anarchism and other anti-Ohristian systems. But it is, perhaps, his essays whicn have won for him his reputation as an allr 1 and cultured writer and a souna and penetratipg critic. Nearly thirty years ago he began a series of brilliant contributions to the ' Quarterly ' and ' Dublin ' Re\iews, which have attracted much attention. In a recent review of one of his works the ' Times ' says : ' There are few priests in his communion who are Dr. Barry's peers in knowledge of Church history and philosophy, and none wlio can at all approach him in knowledge of our language, in wealth of diction, and Tn grace of style. His study on Newman now before us is worthy of Sainte-Beuve.'