People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 46, 14 November 1907, Page 28

People We Hear About

. I had rather talk to Dr. ' Maurice Francis Egan about books than to a dozen senators who are mere placemen,' said President Roosevelt a short time ago when speaking of his ■ esteem for Dr. Egan, who has been his guide into the fields of Gaelic literature.

Lord Mount-Stepheni who has given. £35,000 to 4m nnn ur Ox P hana g e » yielding a minimum income of *-i, uuu annually, and .providing for the permanent endowment of one hundred beds, commenced life as a draper's assistant m Aberdeen, and then went to Canada, where he amassed a great fortune. He was president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, when that enterprise was extended to the Pacific coasti

In making a contribution to the jubilee testimonial in honor of his ' dear old friend ', Mr. T. P. O'Connor Mr. Justin- McCarthy' says :— ' The only drawback to my pleasure m sending, this cheque is to me the smallhess ot the amount to which I am compelled^to limit -it. Most gladly, if it were in my power, would I 'endeavor to marie my appreciation of T. P. O'Connor's splendid JNational services by a muchT larger contribution. By the death of Archbishop Williams; Archbishop Kyan, of Philadelphia, becomes x the doyen of the American hierarchy ; he is seventy-six years of age. Cardinal b-ibfcrons is seventy-three, and next in point of years is his Grace of St. Paul, Archbishop Ireland, who is sixtyn A ine vu Archbish <>P Keane, of Dubuque, is sixty-eight, and Archbishop Farley, of New York, and Archbishop Riordan, of San Francisco, are sixty-five. ; It is insleirestin!g to learn,- in connection witn the "voyage/ of the Lusitania,' that the Ambrose Channel frequently mentioned in the reports is the work of a County Limerick man, the late Mr. J. W. Ambrose, of Newcastle \ i'.T over a quarter of a century, he had bfeen identified with the harbor improvements of New York and through his , instrumentality , the Government expended over 6,000,000 dollars to construct the channel from Sandy Hook. It is 2,000 feet long, 40 feet deep, and saves a circuitous route of about seven mile's. 'Surgeon-General Sir Alfred Keogh, X.C.8., Director general of the Royal Army Medical. Corps, has been appointed an honorary physician to the UCing. In the military medical services the appointments of honorary physician or surgeon to the King, are reserved tor the twelve most distinguished officers (six physicians and six surgeons) in each of the two branches— Royal ' •Army Medical Corps an-d Indian Medical Service. Sir Alfred Keogh graduated M.D., of the Royal University of Ireland in 1878. He was for some time, a student at Guy's Hospital".

A flood of telegrams and messages of ' congratulations were received on July 23 at the archiepiscopal residence Baltimore, reminding the venerable Cardan?] Gibbons that it was his seventy-third birthday. The- felicitations came not only from all parts ,of the province of Baltimore, which extends from Maryland to Florida, but from clergy and laymen throughout America. By cable there were received during" the. day, a message expressing the good wishes of the Cardinal's numerous^ friends in Rome With the exception of Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia who is seventy-six, Cardinal Gibbons is fhe oldest member of the Catholic hierarchy in America.

The grand-niece of the poet Shelley has more or less returned to the Italy that he made so much his home. She has gone to Rome, if one may conclude so, from" her marriage to Lieutenant Fausto Leva, at the Church of the Servite Fathers in Fullham-road. Byron's direct descendants iare all Catholics. Shelley has no direct descendants ; but it looks as if his collateral representatives were tending towards Rome spiritually as well as geographically. , - , Colonel FitzGeorge, the son oE the late Duke of Cambridge, whose death was lately announced, was the offspring of <a marriage without -the consent of the Crown, contracted by a person in the line. of succession to the Throne, and accordingly under the provisions of the Royal Marriage Act, which was passed in 1772, by a subservient Parliament, in obedience to the whim of George, 111., invalid according to English law, although pierfectly valid in accordance with moral law, and the law of England, as applicable to everyone except the specially exempted persons in the line of sucoession to the Throne. It was owing to the provisions of this Act, that Georce IV., w.ho, when Prince of Wales, contracted a clandestine <miarriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert, a Catholic lady, was able to relieve himself from the sacrpd obligations of the marriage tie, although he was powerless to escape from the discredit, produced by his conduct, ' ' "