People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 18 January 1912, Page 39

People We Hear About

On November. 29 Sir Francis Burnand celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday. His connection with Flinch commenced in ’June, . 1866. ' Sir Robert Hart, for many years Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, and Posts, left estate .valued at £140,260 gross, with net personalty £139,919. I Lord Petre,;. now the head of one of the oldest Catholic families of England, came of age on November 2, and 'celebrated the occasion by a luncheon to his tenantry at Tbbrndon Hall, Essex. His Lordship, who is the 16th Baron of his line, is an officer in the Coldstream .Guards. .Cardinal Gapecelatro, now eighty-seven years old, and sixty years a priest, son of the Duke of Castlepagno, has celebrated his silver jubilee as a member of the Sacred College. He has written 27 volumes and 32 pamphlets. He has been Archbishop of Capua thirtyone years. The Cardinal. is now the oldest member of the college. The ‘ financial relations ’ in connection with the Home Rule Bill for Ireland are being investigated and considered by a committee of experts appointed by the Government for that purpose. One of the experts is an Irish Catholic Bishop, of whom Mr. T. P. O’Connor writes thus : ‘ By a curious chance the dominating figure of this committee is an Irish Bishop, Dr. Kelly, the Bishop of Ross. The diocese of Ross is one of the smallest dioceses in Ireland, and its Bishop, up to the time he was raised to the mitre, had been simply a college professor and was apparently unknown outside

clerical circles. But William O’Brien and George Wyndham created the disastrous finance of the Wyndham Land Act measure,that has raised* the price of land’ in Ireland more than 50 per cent.—Dr. Kelly began to write criticisms in the Freeman’s Journal, which, by their masterly array of figures, let the world know that there was a fine financial mind in the Irish episcopate. When Ireland was asked for a financial expert who would discuss the complex financial question, men’s minds turned to this admirable, cogent and practical thinker.’ 7 , . • : Cardinal Billot, though of parents native to the west of France, was by the accident of their temporary residence born at Mulhausen, in Alsace. He made his undergraduate studies at the Jesuit College at Bordeaux and his ecclesiastical studies in the diocesan seminary at Blois, where he., was ordained. His first professorship was at the Catholic University of Angers, where he held the Chair of Ecclesiastical History. He shortly entered the novitiate of the. Society of; Jesus as Angers, and after reviewing his theology at Laval, began to teach theology in the Jesuit scholasticate of the Province of France in the Island of Jersey. Since 1885 he has held the chair of scholastic theology at the Gregorian University in Rome, j For some years back * he has been one of the Consultors of the Holy Office. He is a tall, spare man, with a slight stoop from, long bending over his desk at study; his hair is gray, his eyes bright and twinklng, his face most kindly in expression, and his conversation bright and vivacious. His pupils have always been enthusiastic over him as a lecturer of remarkable clearness, depth, interest, and force, Scattered as they are over the. four quarters of the earth, they will hail with joy the honors coming to their old professor, at the close of his days of teaching- :• ‘