People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 4 June 1908, Page 28

People We Hear About

Dr. Joseph Cox Bridge, recently appointed Professor, of Music at Dublin University, is the brother of Sir Frederick Bridge, professor at London University, and organist at Westminster Abbey. The late Eight Hon. C. C. Kingston (says a writer in the Adelaide 'Southern Cross') was the son of a pioneer statesman who was always known as 'Paddy' Kingston. Mr. Kingston was proud of his Irish ancestry. When he could, he attended every meeting addressed by Irish delegates, and, if unable ■to be present, a stirring letter was sent expressing his sympathy with Irish aspirations. He presided at the great meeting in the Adelaide Town Hall, when John Eedmond, the present leader of the Irish party, gave his splendid lecture on the Irish question in 1882. At many of the St. Patrick 's ,Day demonstrations he took a • prominent part. With Nan Irish father, a Scottish grandfather, and a Portuguese grandmother, Mr. Kingston used" to jocularly say that he had the virtues of three-nationalities and the vices of none..The centenary of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which was celebrated a few weeks ago, directs attention to the venerable occupant of the See, the Most Eev. Dr. Eyan, who is now in his seventy-eighth year. .Archbishop Eyan has been a conspicuous figure in both the civic and religious life of Philadelphia ever since June 8, 1874, when he succeeded Archbishop Wood. Despite his advanced age, Archbishop Eyan is still a strong and vigorous man. His Grace was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, in 1831. He was in his twenty-second year when he went to America, and was ordained priest soon after. He was consecrated Coadjutor Bishop of St. Louis in 1872, and while visiting Borne in 1874 was given the honorary title of Archbishop of Salamina, by Pope Leo XIII. Shortly after his return to America, after this visit, he was transferred to his present post. Among the members of the new board of directors of the 'Times' (says the London 'Tablet') appears the name of Mr. Valentine Chirol, long connected with its department of foreign intelligence. Turning to 'The Catholic Who's Who,' we find Mr. Chirol 's name therein entered as the 'son of Alexander Chirol, an Anglican clergyman, who went over to Eome. His pwn journeyings, as war correspondent and otherwise', have taken him into Turkey, Egypt, Persia, and Manchuria, and have resulted in such important contributions to the study of England's foreign policy as "The Far Eastern Question" and "The Middle Eastern Question." ' Of course, no one member of the staff of a great newspaper can control its policy or even ensure its" accuracy of fact ; but it is a good thing to know that Printing House Square has on the spot a very able journalist whose knowledge of Catholic affairs may often supply deficiencies in this respect regrettably notable in others. Of Captain Yamamoto, second in command of the Japanese warships at the Jamestown~Exposition, the 'Catholic jtfews' relates this edifying incident : — A short time before the sea battle of Tsu-shima took place (during the Eusso-Japanese war) he went to the residence of the priest and asked that he be allowed to receive Holy Communion. The missionary, rather astonished at the request, reminded him that, it was two o 'clock in the afternoon, and that no one, unless' fasting, was allowed to receive Communion. 'But, l am fasting,' was the reply; 'and, as this will probably be my last chance, I sincerely hope you will not deny my request.' He had remained fasting up to a late hour on each of three days, awaiting this first opportunity to go ashore and receive what he thought would surely be his Viaticum. There is evidently in this naval officer a strain of the magnificent faith that St. Francis Xavier planted in Japan about the middle of the sixteenth century, and that survived the official suppression of Christianity something more than a hundred years later. We like to think that among the Japanese converts of later days there are to be found many Catholics as staunch in faith and as consistent in practice as Captain Yamamoto. ,