People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 29 July 1915, Page 41

People We Hear About

Sir Samuel M'Caughey, who is generally recognised as Australia's sheep-king, celebrated the 80th anniversary of his birthday recently. Though his life has been a very busy and eventful one, he is still hale and hearty, and looks like putting many more year-posts behind him. He was born near Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, in 1835, and came to Australia when about 21. , To old residents of Queensland (says the Brisbane correspondent of the Catholic Press) it is especially pleasing to learn that the dignity of Dean has been conferred upon Father Andrew Horan, and Father Matthew Horan. Had Father James J. Horan lived, no doubt he also would have been created a Dean. The three brothers were nephews of the late Bishop O'Quinn, and possessed many of his fine characteristics. They were all men of fine presence and address, born leaders of men, and intensely devoted to the welfare of the Church. For more than 40 years they have labored for the Church in Queensland. Father James Horan was parish priest of Warwick; as far back as 1872 he accompanied Bishop O'Quinn on a visit of the goldfields. During the visitation they had to camp out for seventeen nights. Father Andrew Horan has built at Ipswich a beautiful church— the finest in Southern —resembling closely the Rockhampton Cathedral. A contributor to the Imperial lie view, writes as follows: —'We like to write under the fresh and moist impression of some event. The reader has the pleasure of a geologist, who finds the print of a leaf. The impression this time is from hearing Archbishop Mannix, on a fine Sunday afternoon, in the spacious yard of the new day school of St. Brendan's, Flemington, with a large and congenial audience of men, women, girls, and boys. Never can either Catholics or Protestants forget the error of the Victorian Education Minister Stephen, over forty years ago, when he declared that the Secular Education Act would be a sharp wedge, to rend the Catholics asunder. He was Chancellor of the Church of England, but a sensible minority of Protestants disagreed with him. Dr. Mannix is a great ecclesiastic. Late President of Maynooth, he thrusts his hand and fingers into the Melbourne gauntlet. lie stands before us with the meagre frame of a Manning, wearing a black gown, with broad purple sash round his waist, and his head crowned with a purple biretta. His theme is the injustice to Victorian Catholics through having to pay about £250,000 a rear for their own schools, with another .£250,000, which they are taxed for the State schools.' The Brisbane Catholic Advocate, in its account of the visit of his Excellency the Apostolic Delegate to his Grace Archbishop Dunne at the episcopal residence, says: There was pathos noble pathos—in the meeting which touched the hearts of all present. It had. been looked forward to with such supreme pleasure and ardent expectation by the venerable prelate to whom Queensland owes so much. Those feelings were expressed in words that, although affected by the deep emotion under which the speaker labored, were quite audible to all around as Dr. Dunne addressed his very distinguished visitor. In the course of his remarks, his Grace said he could not help reflecting how Tike his mission was to the descriptions given by St. Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, of St. Paul's visits to the early Churches. He assured the distinguished visitor that the clergy and laity of the archdiocese shared to the full in his own joy at this early visit to the capital city of Queensland. He (his Grace) was now in his 85th year, and one of the greatest pleasures of the evening of his life was that "which he derived from a loyal and devoted clergy, and a faithful, generous, and affectionate people, who were exemplary alike in the practice of their religion and good citizenship.