People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 6 April 1911, Page 633

People We Hear About

Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., is now in his sixtieth year; Mr. John Redmond, M.P., is 54, Mr. T. M. Healy is 56, and Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., is 64, but he does not look it. \

Hon. Michael J. Ryan, National President of the United Irish League of America, and actively identified with the business life of Philadelphia, has been elected a trustee of Tempie University in that city. Mr. John O'Connor, M.P., presided at a banquet given in the Inns of Court Hotel, London, on February 11 to the new members of the Irish Party returned -!at the recent election. The new members were--Alderman Cottpn, Mr. P. Crumley, Dr. Esmonde, Mr. J. Fitzgibbon, and Mr. W. H. Redmond. " . The Catholics of Belgium are preparing to honor Count Verspeyen, director-in-chief of the Bien Public, in celebration of the fiftieth year of his journalistic career. That the Count is in every way worthy of the honors he is about to receive is attested by the fact that the most prominent in the'land have given their hearty approval to the pro-* posal. The Rev. Father Cortie, S.J., who passed through Melbourne the other day on his way to the South Sea Islands, is Professor of Physics in Stonyhurst College, and is the real head of the famous observatory there. The nominal head is Father Sidgreaves, who is unfortunately blind, but his reputation for work in the science of astronomy stands very high. Stonyhurst observers are chiefly concerned in the study of sun spots, on which subject it is the first observatory in England. Father Cortie has had assigned to him a section of the international work, now 111 progress, of spectroscopically studying and photographing the stars; work mapped out and shared by different observatories. His contributions to the astronomical section of the British Association include papers on the chemistry of the sun and the nature of its spots.' In 1906 or 1907 he took a solar expedition to Western Spain, and was reported to be the only observer fortunate enough to obtain a view of the eclipse at totality when the sun was not obstructed by clouds. On this expedition he used the instruments of the Royal Dublin Societv. The recent death of Mr. Michael Cuddahy, the Chicago millionaire, and the appointment of a self-made man, Mr. .lames A. Farrell, a New York Catholic, as President of the United States Steel Corporation, at a'salary of £20,000 a year, bring to mind the fact that another prominent Catholic (Mr. Schwab) has made his way to colossal wealth under very romantic circumstances. It is not quite thirty years since this man of many millions was driving the mail cart between Cresson and Loretto, and filling in his spare hours by working on neighboring farms. A little later he was selling sugar and tea over a grocery counter in Braddock, as a preliminary to driving stakes at a dollar a day for the Carnegie Company. At twentytwo, so rapidly did promotion come in his new sphere of work, he was earning £IOOO a year; and three years later we find him superintendent of the Homestead * Works on a British Cabinet Minister's income. From this point his advance towards wealth was so meteoric that, long before he emerged from the thirties, he owned shares hav~ nig a par value of nearly £8,000,000. Lord Dudley, the retiring Governor-General of ' the Commonwealth, is only in his forty-fourth year. He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1902 to 1906, and very few Viceroys of Ireland had been more popular with all classses of the community in the Emerald Isle. Speaking in the House of Lords on February 3, 1908, in opposition to the system of Coercion which had been used by successive Governments in Ireland, he said:'l would far rather consider the possibility of an amendment in the system of government than fall back upon a permanent attitude of force which some extreme Unionists advocate. And my reason for that can be stated. I believe thoroughly and honestly in the qualities of the Irish race. I believe them to be brave, to be quick-witted, and at heart a loyal people. I believe that the expressions of disloyalty which we, unfortunately, read of from time to time are, as a rule, manufactured articles, and I believe that real disloyalty only exists to a very small extent. Apparently, disloyalty is undoubtedly part of the game in-the strimgle'for national self-government. But, my lords, there "is . undoubtedly grave discontent and dislike of British government. May I not make an appeal to noble lords who sit upon this side of the House to refrain from attacking, for, mere party considerations, a policy which, as I understand it, seeks to allay that dislike by conciliatory methods, and which strives to avoid taking any action which will, if persisted in, inevitably turn discontent into real disloyalty, and .which would make it for ever impossible for England tj take advantage of and to utilise these great and useful qualities with which, as I think, the Irish people are very richly endowed.