People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 25 February 1915, Page 41

People We Hear About

The new ‘Father’ of the House of Commons, in. succession to Mr. Thomas Burt, whose retirement is announced, will be Mr. Stuart W ortley. Mr. Burt has sat continuously in Parliament since the year 1874, and Mr. Stuart Wortley since 1880. Mr. T. P. O’Connor possesses an almost equal claim to . the title. He also lias sat uninterruptedly since 1880, but five years of his membership was on behalf of Galway City, before he went to the Scotland Division of Liverpool. Father Puyade, a distinguished French Benedictine, has fallen on ‘ the field or honor,’ fighting bravely for his country. He was a professor at the Syriac Seminary in Jerusalem, and when the mobilisation was ordered was superintending at the Catholic University of Beyrout the printing of an important work collection of Syriac liturgical chants. He was well acquainted with the liturgies of the East. Father Puyade was only thirty-two years old. Colonel Maurice George Moore, who, in company with Mr. J. E. Redmond, M.P., inspected 14,000 Nationalist Volunteers at Limerick on December 20, is the son of an Irish politician who was a leader in the tenant-right movement half a century ago. For many years Colonel Moore was in the Connaught Rangers,' and during the South African campaign he succeeded to the command of the first battalion. Soon after his promotion he helped to remedy of mounted men among the British force. Mounting and training some 500 of the Rangers, Colonel Moore formed a mounted column with them, and this did excellent work during the later stages of the war. It is eight, years since Colonel Moore left the active list. It is interesting to recall why the late Sir Thomas Kelly-Kenny adopted the name of Kenny. When he was a young officer lie went to Brighton (of which he was always fond) for a short holiday, and one stormy day he chanced to look out of the window of his apartments to see an old gentleman vainly endeavoring to cross the road in the teeth of the gale. Young Kelly (as he then was) ran downstairs and, going out, offered his assistance to the old man and safely brought him across the road. To thank him he was invited to dinner that evening by the elderly stranger, and thus a friendship was formed. No one was more surprised than the young officer on the death of his friend to discover that he had left him a goodly inheritance of several thousand pounds a year, and thus it was that the name Kenny was added to Kelly, and henceforth he was known as Kelly-Kenny. By all who knew him he will bo sincerely mourned, and by none so deeply as those officers who served with him during his long and distinguished career. The correspondent of a London Sunday paper states that Lord Castlerosse, the eldest son of Lord Kenmare, who recently returned wounded from the front after a very exciting experience, will probably be obliged to have his arm amputated from the elbow. Lord Castlerosse, who is only twenty-three, was wounded early in the campaign, and was taken prisoner by the Germans, but was subsequently released by the French. Another scion' of a noble Catholic house whose fate gave much anxiety to relatives—now happily relieved in partis Lieutenant Henry Talbot, only son of Lord Edmund Talbot, the chief Unionist Whip, and a nephew of the Duke of Norfolk. Mr. Talbot was serving in the 11th Hussars, of which his father was at one time colonel, and some time ago he was reported as missing. All efforts to obtain news of him proved unavailing for several weeks, but now word has been received to the effect that he fell wounded into the hands of the Germans. He is suffering from a badly fractured thigh, but every hope of his recovery is entertained.