A Tale of a Thief

New Zealand Tablet, 23 August 1906, Page 22

A Tale of a Thief

The man that makes himself a sheep will find plenty to shear him. The man that goes prospecting for mare's nests will strike 'em rich— generally when The old mare is off them. And when he is known to he a No-Fopeiy gobemouche, - ' The varlcts will about him flocke And cluster thick into his leasings vaine, Like foolish flies about an honey crock In hope by him great benefits to olrtaine.' This is what happened to the perfervid orator who recently spun in Sydney a story to the effect that a Presbyterian girl bad been a servant at the Catholic Ficsbytery, Bathurst (N.ri.W.) ; that she went from there to the Magdalen Retreat at Tempe ; that she was there robbed of her money and clothes by the Good Samaritan nuns, put under lock and key, an<( 1 foiced to work from four o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock at night." And so on. * This is the substance of the story spun during an exhibition of oratorical vaulting and tumbling in Sydney on ' the gloiious twelfth.' The story received a piompt and sensationally complete exposure at the hands of the Sydney ' Freeman.' Everybody now knows that this latest bit of anti-convent fiction was concocted by a convicted thief and gaol-bird ; that she never was employed in the Bathurst or any other Catholic presbytery ; and that the story of her ill-treatment at Tempe was an impudent fabrication. A telegram to Bathurst or a telephone message to the Tempe Retreat would have spared the Orange leaders in Sydney the humiliation which has now fallen upon them. It was only when the murder was out and possible tiouble was brewing that they did what people of normal caution and sanity would have done in the first instanceinstituted inquiries. The result is told in the latest issue to hand o£ the ' Watchman,' the organ of the Orange fraternity in New South Wales. They communicated with the Comptroller-General of Prisons, and also with Broken Hill. Then tardy knowledge, if not wisdom, dawned upon them. They learned the wretched story of their ' heroine ' of ' th« glorious, twelfth,' saw that she had lied 'in a most unblushing manner, ' and confirmed the lie by swearing a false declaration. Some New Zealand newspapers that copied the original stoiy have, thus far, not inserted so much as a line regarding its exposure and abandonment. * ' The scalded dog dreads cold water.' But, then, instinct teaches the dog lessons of caution tliat reason, when clouded by sectarian passion, often fails to teach the lord of creation. Will the irfay Go-uld (alias Maud Harris) exposure be a warning to the Yellow Agony in New South Wales to not jump at* every bit of fly-blown No-Popery bait -without ex-

amining and • nosing » it a" little ? Not a bit. A succession of such exposures— even at Ihe hands of a Parliamentary Commission— has left them still with the indiscriminate andi inca/uiious appetite of the gudgeon for every tit-bft of No-Popery romance that is dangled before their noses. And the gaol-birds know it. For the brethren, hatred of ' Rome ' is the very ark of the convenant. They took the Slatteiy impostors, and even the fifth y and unspeakable Margaret Shepherd, to their hearts, provided them with audiences, and stufied their wallets with gold. Why— apart from unpleasant possibilities— should they disown their small-fry l heroines ' like the impenitent thief and perjurer, May Gould (alias Mau-d Harris) ? It seems passing strange— and scarcely fair to Maud— to spring without notice this repudiation upon a fair average specimen of the class that is the bret-hren's chief dependence in ' exposing ' the ' abominations ' of Rome. For the rest, the situation, so far as they are concerned, is summed up in two sentences : ' Les visianaires croient a leur visions ' ; and ' fingunt simulque credunt.' Which may be freely interpreted : 'Yellow visionaries aie not open to conviction ' ; ami : ' People who readily believe malevolent stories' will as readily add to them.' The Orange organ now opines that the story of the Broken Hill thief was possibly a Popish Plot to throw discredit upon the brethren !