People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 7, 15 February 1906, Page 10

People We Hear About

The Empress Eugenic has sold the estate of Solferino, (Landes), which the Emperor Napoleon presented to her in 1860, for £92,000. The retirement of Lord Justice Mathew from the= English Court of Appeal is announced. Although he is rapidly recovering from his recent attack of illness, he feels that at seventy-five, after twenty-five years occupancy of the English judicial Bench— of which he is the father— he may well seek a rest from his labors. Lord Justice Mathew is admittedly one of the ablest lawyers on the Bench. Replying to a deputation of British representatives from Belgian towns who waited on him at Brussels on December 22 to congratulate him on the fortieth anniversary of his accession, King Leopold referred to the relations which had existed between Great Britain and the Low Countries during the past five centuries, and spoke of his personal regard for Lord Beaconsfield Mr Gladstone, and other British statesmen. A talented man has rarely produced gifted children. But an exception appears in the case of Sir Francis Burnand, the editor of London ' Punch.' Sir Francis has a daughter, Winifred, who is making a name in the world of art, especially as a humorous illustrator of children's books. But the most notable proof of her skill is that she was engaged to draw political cartoons for use at the general elections in England. Miss Burnand is said to be the first Englishwoman who has ever accomplished anything in political caricature. The Earl of Granard, one of the new Lords-in-Waiting, is an Irish Catholic peer. It was his ancestor, who secured the initial grant of Regium Donum for th& Presbyterian 'ministers of Ireland from Uharles 11. The grant came to an end with the disestablishment of theIrish Church in 186*9. Lord Granard sits in the House of Lords as. Baron Granard in the peerage of the United) Kingdom. This title was conferred on his grandfather, a staunch Liberal, by the Government of ' All the Talents ' in 1806. The ages of leading members of the new Liberal Government are given as follows :— Sir H. CampbellBannerman, M.P., 69 ; Sir Robert Reid, M.P., 59 ; EarL of Crewe, 74 ; Marquis of Ripon, 78 ; Mr. Herbert Gladstone, M.P., 51 ; Sir Edward Grey, M.P., 43; Lord. Elgin, 56 ; Mr. Richard Haldane, M.P., 49 ; Mr. James Bryce, M.P., 67 ; Mr. John Morley, M.P., 6? • Lord Tweedmouth, M.P., 56 ; Mr. Herbert H. Asquith, M.P., 53 ; Mr. David Lioyd-George, M.P., 42 ; Mr. John Burns, M.P., 47 ; Earl Carrington, 62 ; Mr. Augustine Birrell, K.C., 55 ; Mr. Sydney Buxton, M.P., 52 ; Sir Henry H. Fowler, M.P., 75 ; Captain John Sinclair,. M.P., 45. The announcement made a few days ago that Lord. Dunraven was prepared to make another attempt to- win the America Cup, provided certain conditions in therules for the race were altered, reminds us that the leader of the Irish Reform Association is a mos-t skilful yachtsman. He knows every inch of a yacht, and a few years ago published a fine volume, written for amateurs, on the theory and practice of navigation. Indeed, yachting is the one pastime Lord Dunraven has been able to find time for in a busy career. After Oxford he entered the Ist Life Guards, but retired in 1862. Five years later he was in Abyssinia as a warcorrespondent, a position he also filled during the Franco-Prussian war. When he went .to South Africa, however, he forsook 1 the pen for the sword, and he is still a Volunteer officer. Many of my New Zealand readers (writes a Londott. cor respondent) must know and delight in that most charming novel, ' The Cardinal's Snuff Box,' and the scarcely less charming ' Lady Paramount.'- If so they will be grieved to learn .that the author of 'those exquisite little works, Mr. Henry Harland, died recently in Italy, the land of which he has. given us such unsurpassable pen-pictures. His age was only 44, but he has long suffered from an insidious form of tuberculosis, which in the end completely broke him down. He had been offered by a leading publisher a sum of no lessthan £4000 to Write another novel, but was too ill to undertake the task. He is a great and irreparable loss to modern literature,, for there is no one who can wholly] fill his place, or who possesses his singular grace of style and diction, and his faculty of picturesque description, or his rare lightness of touch. (Mr. Harland was received into the Church a few years ago.)