THE EX-PRIEST CAMPAIGN IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 6, 8 February 1900, Page 4

THE EX-PRIEST CAMPAIGN IN NEW ZEALAND.

SLATTERY AND HIS BOGUS 'EX-NUN'

A FEMALE IMPOSTOR'S CAREER.

Mrs. Slattery's 'Witnesses.'

In another pamphlet we have proved the utter worthlessnesa of ex-priest Slavery's 'testimonials ' and shown how they leave his character exactly where they found it. Mrs. Slattery, too, has her ' testimonials ' — or rather her witnesses. They are both shy birds — so shy, indeed, that every inducement has failed to make them visible in the flesh. One of these coy 'witnesses' signs himself 'John Stinsoa V\ r right. ' in a letter to the Manchester Courier of December 20, 1897. He has the following to say : — ' First, I knew Mrs. Slattery when she was a child. I knew her before she went into a convent, and I remember the time she came out ; and I am sure she was in a convent in Cavan. Mrs. Klattery is a member of a flue old family, and is a lady by birth. Her father, James MacCabe, was a graduate of Trinity College, and a gentleman in every sense of the word.'

On this letter Mr. Britten has the following remarks : — ' Most of these statements are disposed of by the sworn testimony already adduced : one of them Father Lynch undertook to examine, and he published in the Court 'r the results of his investigation. It will be observed that Mr. Wright does not locate the " Trinity 0 >llege " at which James MacCabe graduated. There are three Trinity Colleges in the United Kingdom — »t Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin. Father Lynch obtained official information from each of these that no James MacOabe had graduated there since the year 1800. Another correspondent wrote to the Courier to say that a James MacCabe had graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 171*8, although he could not say whether he was the James MacCabe in question. It may be assumed he was not, for, supposing him to have graduated at the early age of 18, he would have been 87 years old in IKC>7 — the date at which Mrs. flattery tells us she was born — and 1)1) years at the time of death, which took place when his daughter was 12 years old. If he were the same he must have been a remarkable man for his age, for Mrs. Slattery tells us (Convent J/tfe, p. 3(j) that the two ' used to ramble in the early mornings ' in the summer preceding his death. 1 In a second letter, " John Stinson Wright " said he ' knew Mrs. John Brandon, who at one time lived in Cootehill, and who now lives in Clonas.' Father Lynch {Courier, January 1, lriiLS) thus conclusively disposes of this item of information :—: — " There is no such place as Clonas in Ireland at all. No such place is given in the Irish Post Ollice Directory. No such place is given either in Phillips' large folio atlas, or in the Times folio atlas, published two years ago. There is no auch phce given in Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland. I even wrote to Dublin, and the official information sent to me was that there was no such place as Clonas. Now if I had written to you at once to say there was no such place as Clonas, Mr. Wright might popsibly reply that Clonas was a misprint for Clones, a little town about 12 miles from Cootehill, the alleged birth-plaoe of Mrs. Slattery. To-day I received three letters from Clones. The local doctor, who was born in Clones, and is now a magistrate, and who knows everybody in and around the town, never heard of such a person aa Mrs. Juhn Brandon. The rlerk of the Petty Sessions in Clones, who also knows every one in it, never heard of Mrs. John Brandon. There is only one person of the name Brandon in the town. She is a single old lady, aged 70, aud was never married. She never heard of Mrs. Slattery, and is no relation of hers." 'To this letter no reply came from " John Stinson Wright." It will be observed (continues Mr. Britten) that "John Stinson Wright " appends no address to his first letter. When his attention was called to this omission he gave it as " care of Rev. Joseph Slattery, Protestant Alliance Office, London." Now, it seems remarkable that Wright should have no more settled address than that formerly employed by a peripatetic lecturer who had already publicly stated that he was not lecturing under the auspices of the I'rotestant Alliance ; and it can hardly be wondered at that some have assumed the identity of Wright with Slattery.' But Mrs. Slattery has another ' witness.' This time it is (apparently) a lady. And, like the invisible ' John Stinson Wright,'

she lives at no address. Well, this bashful ' witness ' wrote over the signature 'Ellen Brady' to the Shi fluid anil Rotherham Independent of December 2, 1897.* Her letter briefly tells us that she was an orphan in the Convent of Poor Claris. C-ivan, Ihul Mrs. Slattery was there at the time, was called Sifter Mary Elizabeth, and was ' mother of the orphans.' This is clumsy lying. Nobody acquainted with the working of orphan asylums conducted by religious needs to be told that no vovice in any Order (whether of POOI Ciuiea 01 of Si--Lcii of Meioy or of. Sisters of Nazareth, or of any other whatsoever) i« entrusted with the responsible position ot 'mother of the uiphttn-.' And Slatttfry'w wife claims to have left the Cavan Convent as a novice and never to have made her profession as a nun. Now, if ' Ellen Brady 'isto be taken as a reliable witness, Mrs. Slattery has lied. If Mrs. Slattery's story of her novitiate be accepted as true, then ' Ellen Brady ' has told a falsehood. There is a third supposition open to us : that both ' Ellen ' Brady and Mrs. Slattery have lied ; and a fourth : that they are one and the same person. At any rate, 1 Ellen Brady ' lay perdue. Nothing could induce her to reveal her whereabouts or her identity. Those who have assumed the identity of ' John Stinson Wright ' with Joseph Slattery will probably hold that ' Ellen Brady ' is but one of the aliases of Mrs. Slattery.

Such is Mrs. Slattery's sole ' defence.' The Duke of Norfolk, her Majesty 'B Postmaster-General, has truly said that 'no decent man would listen to, no generous man believe,' this woman's vile accusations.! 'Decent women,' said Mr. Labouchere, M.P., in Truth, 'really ought to know better than to attend lectures to " ladies only" by " escaped nuns," whose appeals to the bigotry of their hearers are as notorious for their nastiness as for their mendacity.' Mrs. Slattery would do a more Christ-like work if, instead of calumniating, she tried to imitate, those devoted Catholic sisterhoods who freely devote themselves to the service of the orphan, the aged poor, the leper, the incurable ; who nobly gave their lives for the bick and wounded in the Crimea, the American Civil War, the Franco-German War, and the Spanish American War ; and who. aa the Times correspondent tells us, are setting ' a splendid example of bravery ' even to the fighting men in Kimberley and Mafeking. They do their good work for Christ's dear sake,without fee or reward. And this roving impostor calumniates them at ' front seats one shilling, back seats sixpence.'

•This letter ,ind— strangei still -the m\i«ililc ami unrh^coverAblc 'John Rtinson Wright's' are, despite their 111,1111 est main tl'lea, published m SlatteryV Complete Rejutation ot Fopith ties, pp. 11, 12

t Letter addiessed tr> Canon Goidun Dllcihlici 11 i s 97, pubhslud 111 the Manchester papers, London Tablet, etc