People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 13, 1 April 1909, Page 508

People We Hear About

Miss Murphy,' once well known in Melbourne as a writer for social journals, is Madame Melba's principal secretary. • '- Miss EtheL Dickens, a granddaughter of Dickens, is , the head of a large - typewriting "bureau in London, and is described as a keen business woman. - Mr. R. Ranalow, the Irish baritone who accompanies Madame Melba on her Australian •tour,' was born in Dublin, and was educated at. a Westminster, school. He has, appeared in many big works, including "oratorio, and is expected to be a grea,t__success in Australia. From Brussels is announced the death of Josephine Rubay, the only living woman who spoke to- Napoleon on' the day, of the battle of" Ligny'. She was 104 years of age, and her recollections of her interview with the French Emperor were still quite exact. The great man patted her on the head. King Alfonso has sent to the Queen of Italy a message that the Cross of the First" Class of * the. Order of Charity has been conferred upon her in recognition oS'H&r admirable endeavors on behalf of the sufferers from the' recent earthquake. The distinction is one that is greatly coveted, as it is only conferred for acts of real heroism. The Emperor of Austria and the Gernkn Emperor have also, conferred decorations on her Majesty. ■> L King Alfonso, whose own governess as a child hailed from the land of Erin, has, with his' young Queen, selected an Irish woman to assume charge of the little ones at Madrid as governess in the place of Miss Bunting, who succumbed so suddenly to heart disease the /other day while in the performance of her duties. The choice hasmet with general approval. For hostile as the Spaniards are to foreigners in general, they make an exception mr favor of the Irish, and there is no continental aristocracy among which the Emerald Isle is so extensively represented as among that of Spain. On Sunday, March 21, his Eminence Cardinal Moran celebrated the silver jubilee of his translation from the See of Ossory to Sydney. _ f His Eminence • was ' born in County Carlqw in 1830, and, as a boy of twelve, accompanied his uncle, Cardinal Cullen, to Rome, where later he made his ecclesiastical studies and was ordained. As student and Vice-Rector of the Irish College, and professor of Hebrew at the College of Propaganda, he resided in Rome for twenty-five years. He returned to Ireland in 1866 as secretary to his uncle, the Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, and" in 1872 was consecrated as -Coadjutor of Ossory, and ruled that see as Bishop fronrwlß73 to 1884. In the latter year he was translated to Sydney. The arrival the other day in New Zealand of two members of the Queensberry family reminds us that the head of the house, the Marquis of Queensberry, was received into the Catholic Church only quite recently. The ancient earldom of Queensberry was, in 1683, raised to a dukedom; but, on the death of the last /duke, who was unmarried, in 1810, the higher dignity then became merged in the Dukedom of Buccleuch. The vicissitudes of fortune have brought to the present Marquis no part of the vast territorial possessions held in past centuries by, the great House of Douglas, one of the most important — as it was- one of the most powerful — of the Border families. Lord Queensberry's conversion to the Catholio faith took place at Farm street, London, v the public announcement of his adhesion to the religion of his ancestors having been made by himself. In taking that step, Lord Queensberry has but followed the example of his near kinswoman, the late. Caroline, Marchioness.-^ of Queensberry, so well known for her piety and charity during her life in London, which she passed in almost conventual seclusion during its closing years in the nineteenth century. Some of her children followed their mother iri% the bosom of the Church, including the Very Rev. Canon Lord Archibald Douglas, for many years a hard-working priest in the dioceses. of Westminster and Southwark, whose name will be for ever honorably, associated with the foundation of the Catholic Boys' Homes in the Harrow., road. To that noble institution Lord Archibald and his devoted sister, the late Lady Gertrude Douglas, applied many years of earnest and self-sacrificing labors. Their accomplished sister, the late Lady Florence Dixie — distinguished in the fields of literature and of travel, ■ and one of the early advocates of the ' Women's ' Rights ' movement, was another member of this once historic house. The Marquis of Queensberry has travelled over a great part of the habitable glofce, and has served his country both in the Royal Navy and in the Army. He has a son and heir — Lord Douglas of Hawick-^now a boy of twelve.