THE VERACITY OF MARIA MONK.

TO THE EDITOK. Sir, — Ifc is with much pain that I see that poor demented creature Maria Monk held up as a truthful witness. Will you allow me to give a short account of this, being principally obtained from Protestant authorities ; and let your readers consider whether the ravings of Maria Monk can be believed by rational beings. Maria Monk was born about the year 1816. Wken seven years old she broke a pencil on her head, and was strange ever after. When about 14 or 15 she left town, and is found successively in the service of various persons, viz., an hotelkeeper, a farmer, a tradesman, and others, and then for a time living on charity. From one of her mistresses she absconded with a quantity of linen, and was discharged from two others for bad conduct. She appeared in Montreal itself, declaring she was a daughter of Dr. Robertson, a magistrate of that city, who had kept her chained in a cell for four years. This failing, she next appeared in New York, and there concocted a successful tale against on* of the Montreal convents. She was taken up by a party of New York Protestants, who, of course, thoroughly believed her. A book was made up in which a convent in Montreal was pretended to be described. On the slander finding ita way to the abore city, a party of Protestants carefully went oTer the convent. They reported, after minute inspection, that it in no respect answered to her account of it ; indeed, it was certain that she had never been within it. But it proved on the other haad that her description answered to a penitentiary of which she had lately been an inmate, when she was dismissed for bad conduct. On the appearance of the book the newspapers of the day asserted, without conAadiction, that it was a mere republication of a work printed in the year 1731, under the title of "The Gates of Hell Opened, or a Development of the Secrets of Nunneries." Maria Monk's pamphlet (says a Liverpool paper) is a verbatim copy of that work, the only difference being a change of names. The editor of a Boston paper pledged himself that this wa« 1 a fact, and the editor of another was ready to make affidavit that the original work was in his possession a few months previously, when it had been lent to the publishers of Maria Monk's disclosures. Thus much for the veracity of Maria Monk. A portion of the Protestant public craved for lies and got their fill.— l am, &c, Beta.