People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 13 August 1908, Page 28

People We Hear About

A great many stories are told about thelate^Sir John Day. One of them is this: In his time the treadmill was still used for ' the- punishment of prisoners, and Sir John, while on circuit'irithe Jiorthi determined to find out for himself what the punishment was like. So he mounted a treadmill, and soon had quite" enough of "the experience. When he asked, to be set free, however, the gaoler in charge pretended not. to hear, him,' and when the judge was released beads of perspiration stood on his brow.

-The Marquess of Ripon has established at least one remarkable record in politics, for he has sat, with one exception, in every Liberal Cabinet since Lord Palmerston's las.t Administration. The exception ,was that of Mr. Gladstone's second Government, when the Marquess was' in India acting as Viceroy. While popular with the native rank.^and file, he- did not find favor with Europeans in India. In "a cahdid moment Lord Ripon once gave a very effusive admirer his own impressions of the matter. ' I congratulate you on your courage and public spirit in pursuing such a large-minded and liberal policy in the East, ' said the gushing one. 'It is very good -of you to say - so, my dear ,' replied his Lordship, ' but, ' to tell you the truth ' (taking his friend's arm confidentially), ' I don't believe that anyone in India approved my policy except my old Scotch gardener ! '

Caruso was glad at one lime to earn a few shillings as an iron and steel worker — his father's trade — in order to' make both ends meet. Many a whipping did. Caruso get, as a boy, for raising his juvenile voice in song when his father considered he ought to be devoting his attention to the turning-lathe. But when the organist of the Church of St. Anna, Naples, engaged him as a member the choir at iod a week. Caruso decided that music was his forte. He ultimately quitted the parental roof, and earned a few shillings per week by singing in church choirs. But it was a hard struggle, and he was obliged to vary his occupation as singer by working at different periods at his father's trade. Then came compulsory military service, after which he managed- to get an engagement at the Opera House, -Palermo, at a salary ot ,£4B per month, and that was the beginning of the Caruso furore.

In a recent number of the American ' Ecclesiastical Review ' there is an interesting article on the late Archbishop Murphy and his schoolmaster. The schoolmaster (says the ' Monitor ') was Mr. Goolding, an ex-Maynooth student. Having found that he had no vocation to the priesthood, Mr. Goolding left St. Patrick's College and became tutor for several years in the family of the O'Reillys of Limerick to the late Rev. Edmund O'Reilly, afterwards the distinguished Maynooth professor, and later still a member of the Society of Jesus.' When his pupil entered Maynooth College, Mr. Goolding found occupation in Kerry as tutor in the family of'the Gallways — then agents to the Earl of Kenmare. Among his pupils there was the late Father Peter Gallwa3', S.J., who died not so long ago in London. After some years spent in Kerry, Mr. Goolding opened -an academy of his own in the City of Cork. Among his pupils there were the late Archbishops of Hobarl and Melbourne, Dr. Murphy and Dr. Gould, O.S.A. The writer of the article, Mr. R. F. O'Connor, Cork, was among, the last of Mr. Goolding's pupils. He has man}' interesting things to tell of his master, who was evidently held in, high esteem by all his pupils. We learn among other things that Mr. Goolding in his latter days fell upon evil times. Failing health compelled him to relinquish school teaching, and he had made no provision for such a contingency as a long season of privation "and wiint of funds. The affection of his pupils, however, stood him in good stead, and among those who constantly contributed to make his last days happy was his Grace the late Archbishop of Hobart. -Year by year he always sent help to his old teacher until* -«r. Goolding's death. No one knew it except the Archbishop and the recipient of his bounty, and now, as in several, other instances brought to light since the Archbishops-d eath, it is the grateful recognition of- his bounty by the recipients of it that_niade rh(j. fact known. . Among the documents left by ' the "late Mr. Goolding, the writer of the article found some that revealed this' constant goodness on the part, of our, beloved Archbishop.