People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 22 July 1915, Page 41

People We Hear About

pf County- Court Judge Wakely, speaking of recruit-> ing to the Roscommon Grand Jury, said he had offeredhis services to the Government, but as he was too old he would not be accepted. / Mr. McKenna, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, though a man of English birth, is a man of Irish lineage. His uncle, Sir Joseph McKenna, was an Irish Home Rule member of Parliament,, who sat at Westminster with Butt and Parnell! p - The Hoefft prize, founded in the University of Amsterdam for the best poem in Latin,, was won this year by the Very Rev, Francis Xavier Reuss, C.SS.R. Father Reuss is a native of Alsace. He went to Rome more than forty-seven years ago, and has a fund ofinteresting anecdotes and remembrances of the past three Sovereign Pontiffs and the invasion of the Eternal; City in 1870. He was honored with the friendship ?of Leo XIII. and Pius X., and composed verses for their festive anniversaries. ; Giolitti, ' who stood for peace, is now dubbed a traitorit remains for history to tell the true facts of the case, but we believe that he has been acting in all sincerity for the good of his country (writes the Rome correspondent of the Irish Catholic). He is: well over seventy; with his powerful mind, strongly marked features, keen sight, a ' Wellington ' nose, he towers above the generality of his countrymen; he has shown himself singularly free from self-interest, refusing honors and titles. We have "heard of many traits of his private benevolence, and he is against all sectarianism, and his family, grandchildren now, are being brought up as pious, good Catholics. Catholics are not conspicuous in the new Ministry of All the Talents, the only two apparently included being both near relatives of the Duke of Norfolk (says the Glasgow Observer). His brother, Lord Edmund Talbot (who kept his sixtieth birthday a day or two ago), retains his office of Whip in conjunction with the chief Liberal Whip, Mr. Gulland ; and the appointment will give satisfaction, for Lord Edmund is weir liked by all sections of the House of Commons. Mr. James Hope, M.P., takes office for the first time, succeeding the Hon. Frederick Guest (a brother of the Lord Lieu" tenant of Ireland) in the not very important role of Treasurer of the Household. Mr. Hope has not so genial a personality as his uncle, Lord Edmund, and was thought a bit of a prig in his Christ Church days but he is a man of some ability. He inherited a large fortune from his father, Mr. Hope Scott, the former Parliamentary Q.C., and friend of Gladstone and Manning ; and he has built a beautiful Catholic church near Herons Ghyll, his place in East Sussex. A very interesting exhibition of the water colors of Lady Butler, the celebrated painter of ' The Roll Call,' was opened in London recently. She has 'been engaged for the last two years on some of the pictures which deal with the Waterloo campaign of 1815. Included in the exhibition will be that wonderful picture, ' Scotland for Ever,' which has been lent for the occasion by the City Art Gallery, Leeds. Lady Butler has painted a companion picture to this, entitled 'The Last Reveille of the Cuirassiers on the Morning of Waterloo.' All the pictures, with the exception of ' Scotland for Ever,' are for sale, the proceeds to be given to the Officers' Families' Fund. It seems wonderful to think that ' The Roll Call' was the picture of the year in the 1874 Academy, after which success the young artist never looked back.' 'The Roll Call' was purchased by Queen Victoria, and is to-day at Buckingham Palace, another picture also purchased by her, ' Rorke's Drift,' being at Windsor. Another famous Scotch picture is ' Steady the Drums and Fifes/ which is in the possession of the regiment whose bravery it commemorates—the ' Die Hards ' of the Peninsular War. . ' The Remnants of an Army ' hangs in the Tate Gallery, and ' Quatre Bras is in the National Gallery," Melbourne. '-