People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2, 11 January 1906, Page 10

People We Hear About

By the retirement of Sir William Butler (says the* London ' Daily News ') the British Army loses the services of one of the most honest and able soldiers of. this generation— a soldier, too, who never became a~ mere, professional parrot, but had, the eye of the statesman and the point of view of the citizen to correct the military tendency of his, training. Sir Joseph Ward, Postmaster-General, leaves about the middle of next month for the Postal Conference^, which opens at Rome on April 21. Every country in. the Postal Union will be represented. The Minister will be accompanied by Lady Ward and daughter, Mr. W, Gray (Secretary to the Post Office), and Mr. B. ML Wilson (private secretary). They will return via America, arriving in the Colony about the middle of July, Mr. Victor Daley, -the popular and well known poet - and journalist of Sydney, passed away the other day at the age of forty years. He had been in poor health for a considerable time. Mr. Daley was born ia Ireland, , but spent 'nearly the whole of his life in Australia, and was a writer by instinct. As a writer of verse he stands amongst the first flight of Australian, composers, and his prose work was always interesting. Mr. Wilfrid 'Ward, who is announced as the new editor of the ' Dublin Review,' is the son of a former editor, Dr. W. G. Ward, the proto-martyr of the Oxford Movement, being ' degraded ' at the University sixty or seventy years ago for the beliefs that have since be-^ come commonly held among Anglicans. Mr. Wilfrid. Ward, who has made a name as the biographer of Cardinal Wiseman, and has in hand the authorised Life o£ Cardinal Newman, has almost hereditary honors, and is a notable addition to that very select company, the editors of quarterlies. Denmark has played an important' part in filling the thrones of Europe in the last half-century, and the aged King Christian must feel proud of the way in which his descendants have acquitted themselves. Hehimself came to sovereignty in an unexpected fashion." He was the fourth son of the Duke of Schleswig-Hol-stein-Sonderburg-Gluckstein, a sufficiently remote relationship to make high distinction very uncertain. But by a protocol the succession to the Danish throne wasvested in him when he was thirty-four years old, and on the (death pf the King in 1863 he ascended the throne amu* troublous events which threatened his security However, he has lived through the storms, and now, at the age of eighty-seven, can regard his country's position with much satisfaction and hope. Mr. Swift MacNeill, in a Hecture on * The Irish Parliament from Within,' delivered at Manchester unearthed from the Irish- Parliament debates the incredible story of a member for a rotten borough in the Irish House of Commons who actually forgot the name of his constituency. Mr. Thomas Sheridan, in a Reform debate in the Irish House of Commons, told the story of a friend of his, then a member of the Irishi House of Commons, who wished to avail himself of the privilege offered to luish members of admission to 'the English House of Commons to listen to the debates The doorkeeper desired to know what place he represented. 'What place-? Why, lam an Irish member.' 'Oh, dear, sir, we are obliged to be very particular for a. few days ago Barrington, the pickpocket, passed as am Irish member.' ' Why then, upon my soul, I forget the borough I represent ; but if you will get me "Watson's Almanack " I will show it to you.' Viscount Massereene is descended from John Foster Lord Oriel, last Speaker of the Irish House of Corn^ mons, .of whom he has unique memorials. It fell to him to put the) motion for the dissolution of 'the Parliament, and he was almost overpowered with emoiiion As many as are of opinion that this Bill do pass "say " Aye, 1 ' the contrary say " No.'JJ The affirmative was andisputable. Aj momentary pause ensued. His lips seemed to decline their office. At length, with an eye averted from the object which he hated, he proclaimed with a subdued voice, ' The Ayes have it ' The fatal' sentence was now pronounced— for an instant he stood statue-like then indignantly, and 'with disgust, flung the Bill upon the table, and sank into his chair with an exhausted spirit. But hef did 'not surrender his insignia of office. When the mace was demanded of him 'No'he said, 'until the body that entrusted 'it to my keeping demand it, I will preserve it for them.' And he toofc it home to Antrim Castle. With it went the Speaker* chair, and there they have, ever since been kept