'Tell me your Company.'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 5, 1 February 1900, Page 3

'Tell me your Company.'

To this day Mana Monk is the quarry out of which the grosser anti-convent romances are hewn and shapen. It is being hawked around by Mrs. Slattery and sold indiscriminately by her along with her own noisome publications. The character of the Slattery crusade may be gauged from the following further facts :

(1) Mrs. Slattery has an unbounded admiration for the fallen woman of Montreal, whom she terms ' the famous nun.' f

(2) Like Maria Monk, Mrs. Slattery never was a nun, as stated by her. We have not the slightest evidence beyond her own worthless word that she was ever even a Catholic. Rumour — for what it is worth — has it that she never was.

(3) Joseph Slattery, her partner in the business, was, as we have shown in another pamphlet, \ dismissed from the ranks of the Catholic clergy for persistent intemperance, and was imprisoned at Pittsburg (U.S.A.) ior the sale of indecent literature.

(t) Mrs. Slattery was, according to her own showing, the friend and for two years guest (HK) of ex-priest Macnamara, who had been dismiss-ed from his Order. After his ' conversion,' he was, in 1878, associated with the notorious female swindler known as the 'Counre-s' Ann O'Delia Dis Debar. § Later on he appeared as the

" A i' \ y .us aj.o two females were sent to prison, tho one in Scotland, the othoi m bii}. Kind, lor obtaining money b> fahely representing themselves as exnun-. One of them was a non Catholic laetoiy-girl from near Glasgow. Her filth\ tali- w is concocted and taught to her b) a mule imposter, who was likewise v non-Catholic. To the great regret ol the Bench, he was lernncted by the police to vanish w hen the girl was anested. In Jlaj, IHD9, an attempt was mad« to manuf.xotuic .in ' escaped nun' story in connection with the Cansbrooke Convent, Isle ol Wight. The attempt was promptly lruatrated by the action of a Protestant, banister, Mr. I. Alderson Foote, (JC. (of 3 Temple, London) and the Isle ol II ii//d Cuit nt ii Press of Way li, 189' J. A iiotonous ' ex-nun,' Mrs. Mary White (Mis;- Wiudsor), according to the Philadelphia Pixsa (a non-Catholic papert of January 23, Ife97, made n d3ing declaration before a Notary Public in which she retrneted all that she had said against the Catholic Church and the liveg led by nuns.

t Convent Lite, p. 7b. Unless whore otherwiso stated we quote from tho American edition of this book. Edith O'Gorman will probably not feel much complimented by being linked with Maria Monk under this designation.

X Joieph blatter y . The Romance oj an Unfrocked Priest. See p. 4of cover of this publication. §New York Sun, January 27, 1894.

paid lecturer of the notorious A.P.A. * For the wild and inflammatory part he took in the savage crusade of the A.P.A. Macnamara was, in 1895, tried by a jury in Kansas City, convicted, and sentenced to a fine of 500 dollars and imprisonment for one year, f In consequence of the conduct of Macnamara and other violent and criminal lecturers of his type, Grand Secretary Jackman, of the A.P.A., issued the following resolution against the further employment of real and so-called ex-priests and sham nuns :—: —

' Whereas ex-priests and ex -nuns were going around the country lecturing or purporting to be lecturing under the auspices of the A.P.A., therefore it is resolved that we will not tolerate any euuh work as this ; and, furthermore, be it resolved that whenever an expriest or ex-nun is lecturing, or claims to be lecturing, under the auspices of the A.P.A.. tha', we denounce them and show them up. And we would especially warn the presidents of the various eotmcils not to engage or employ any ex-priest or ex-nun to lecture for the A.P.A. , as they do the Order more harm than good ' % Mrs. Slattery tells us that she was ' converted ' by this Macnamara. He, in turn, was ' converted ' — it was his second volte-face § — to the Baptist Church lin 1880 by the notorionß Justin D. Fulton. This Fulton lectured some years ago in England, ' but his discourses,' says Mr. James Britten, K.S.G , ' were too bad even for the Protestants who like that kind of thing, and he soon went back to America. The late Bishop of Colchester severely censured an Anglican clergyman for being present on the platform at one of Fulton's lectures.' || Fulton is notorious as the author of a book which is described as ' even more vile, if that were possible.' than the phamphlet for the sale of which Slattery was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment at Pittsburgh Even the strong nostrils of A P.A. could not stand the stench of it as it came from his pen, and we lsarn from an American authority that ' many of the typesetters of a printing firm in Boston gave up their positions rather than have anything to do with the printing of it.' * Fulton, the friend of Macnamara, is likewise the friend of the Slatterys. He has blessed themselves and their work, and Slattery has, in turn, pronounced Fulton ' a great Christian hero.' 2 A testimonial from such a man as Justin D. Fulton, in the words of the Boston Pilot, iB ' valuable only when it does not commend the recipient.'