The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1909. 'MARIA MONK' AND 'PASTOR' CHINIQUY

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8, 25 February 1909, Page 301

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1909. 'MARIA MONK' AND 'PASTOR' CHINIQUY

'<SC*X" AST week we made a brief reference to the r^l i f^» neat and comprehensive manner in which the <3l IT» Vicar-General of Melbourne administered a F ' 111 JR well-merited rebuke to the Orange Grand ZJtX£iC\ Master Snowball. That ill-balanced head of /SwQaA ** le Saffron Sash .'leads the way/ as the •*V>ii§("» Bulletin expi'essesit, 'in the somewhat futile AM^f* pastime of Pope-defying.' The Grand Master V^OL °^ *^ c ran g 6 Institute of Victoria has, in e^jj^ fact, created an unpleasant sensation, even amongst those who have never had any respect for Orangeism, by openly avowing himself as an advocate of the unrestricted admission into the Commonwealth of ' literature ' declared to be, within the meaning, of the Federal laws, immoral and filthy and obscene. The occasion was a picnic of ' true blues ' at Aspendale Park. • "Whether it was that— the intense heat had a liquefying effect on the Snowball brain, or whether it was simply due to the evil genius that generally dogs Orange oratory, this deponent saith not; but, in the course of the usual harangue, against * Popery 2 ' Brother Snowball slopped over into the following ebullition : ' The domination of Romanism that was so often -referred to was no bogey. He had noticed in the Commonwealth Gazette

the other day something which indicated a secret form of domination. An intimation had appeared forbidding the importation, into Australia of Maria Monk. . Rome stepped m and got the Federal Minister of Customs to put m a, notice forbidding the importation of this book as well as another— viz. The Priest and the Confessional. Apparently the Roman Catholics -not only wanted to di<> tate as to what the children in the State should read, but also as to what the adults -should read throughout the Commonwealth Surely people -ought to be abli to read mot 1 1 » *S ° longas xt was not in violation of the

Needless to say, the Orange leader's 'facts' are as unreliable as his principles are pernicious. The VicarGeneral of Melbourne, had an easy task in showing that the Catholic ecclesiastical authorities had not the smallest connection, direct or indirect, with the prohibition of the importation of the unsavory stuff that is so dear to the palate of the 'yellow' brethren. The exclusion of these toetid agglomerates of printed paper— which Grand -Master Snowball ascribes to the Scarlet Woman— was, in reality iX £*w Ora *Z e ~ Party' 8 ™ n particular friend and ally, the Hon George Reid. The facts in the case are very simple The Commonwealth Customs Act of 1901, section 52, forbids the circulation of ' blasphemous, indecent, or obscene' literature, and prohibits the importation «f the same. As far back- as 1904, the Hon. George Reid Mmilr 6 ?^ J^* - these P art icular books of Maria Monk and 'Pastor' Chiniquy were obscene within the meaning ot the Act, and issued the necessary official order forbidding their importation. He took this action entirely or his own motion, and (as a contemporary humorously puts it) 'without previously consulting the then f° P 'V T h P rolubl * lon ™ ordered, not on the ground or Rome, but on the ground of common decency: And in doing as he did, Mr. Reid was simply discharging his duty as a citizen and as a statesman, in accordance with the principles laid down by the very highest authorities on politics and sociology 'Still more determined,' says Max Nordau, the well-known author of Degeneration, dealing with the citizens' duty in respect to certain social ii ITTt SltlS I tl • m^ re n det ermmed must the resistance be to the filth-loving herd of swine, the professional pornographlsts. Ihese have no claim. to the measure of pity which may still be extended to degenerates properly so called as invalids; for they have freely chosen their vile trade, and prosecute it from cupidity, vanity, and hatred of labor +i 'vi i 1 % P° rn °g ra Ph l st poisons the springs whence flows the lite of future generations. No task of civilisation has been so painfully laborious as the subjugation of lasciviously 15 * ii i P°™ographist would take from us the fruit of tins, the hardest struggle of humanity. To him we must show no mercy.' The truth is that in this championing or these immoral writers, in , this suggestive appeal to be allowed to read 'what he Weed,' the high-priest of Orangeism exposes, not 'Rome,' but himself and his own organisation. He is all the time putting himself and them under the microscope for the benefit—and for the warning— of the decent-minded public. The fact that this individual is the leading spirit in the Bible-in-schools party in Victoria has cast upon that organisation a discredit which, m the popular mind, will attach to it for many a

* But are the two books under discussion really obscene and do they really and fairly come under the scope of the prohibitory Act.-' Let us glance first at the personal character of the two individuals responsible for them, and then at impartial testimony regarding the books themselves, and we shall see that there is only one answer to the question. Dealing with Zola and other pornographic writers, Mr. Max Nordau, in the great work Already quoted, lays it down that < predilection for coarseness is a well-known morbid phenomenon/ and declares that it is an invariable accompaniment of degeneration. ' They ' (the imbeciles, he quotes Dr. Sollier as saying) ' love to talk of obscenities. . . . This is a peculiar tendency or mind observable specially among degenerates: it is as 1 natural to them as a wholesome, "tone" is to normal minds/ Tried by this test, it will be seen that in the case of both Maria Monk and Chiniquy there is a distinct departure from the normal, and that both are to be placed unquestionably within the category of moral degenerates. For who and what was Maria Monk? She was a nonOatholic fallen woman — thief, gaol-bird, and prostitute. When a young girl, she absconded from one of her mistresses with- a quantity of wearing linen; by two others she was discharged for her bad conduct. Later on, she entered on a career of systematic immorality, and bwcume a well-known character on the streets of Montreal. A portion of her mis-spent life was passed in a refuge for fallen women conducted by Mrs. Duncan McDonnell in that city, and a goodly portion of the remainder was spent in prison. A creature of weak ihtelleot, she drifted from Montreal to the slums of New York, and continued 'on the streets ' there till the end came in 1849. Then, on an autumn day, she passed for the last time from a house of ill-fame to the" Tombs prison, New York, having been found guilty of picking the pocket of a paramour in a den near the Five Points; and, in this gaol, two

months later, her career of sin and shame and misery was closed by death. The filthy publication to which her name is attached was not actually written by her; but by another moral degenerate, one .of her paramours, a reprobate New York preacher named Hoyte. The^istory of the woman and her associates is to be found In The True Story of Maria Monk (Catholic Truth Society, London, one penny), in Maguire's Irish in America, and in nearly every good encyclopaedia. What was the character of 'Pastor ' Chiniquy? That he was egotistical, vainglorious, dishonest, a forger,--^and an embezzler, has long been known to all who had even a cursory acquaintance with the long-published facts of his career. That there was a still darker background to this unpleasant picture has also been long known to those who have gone at all deeply into the wretched man's history. The details of the seamy side of Clriiiiquy's life-story have long been before the English-speaking public; they have been brought out with greater and more documented fulness than ever before in a pamphlet l)y the Rev. Sydney Smith, S.J., recently published by the London Catholic Truth Society. It appears that even when a mere youth at the Little Seminary of St. Nicolet he was detected in an offence against morality, and. his high-minded uncle at once dis- ■ owned him and refused to be responsible for his further maintenance. In 1846, according to a document recently published, he was caught in the very act of a sin against morals, and was thereupon obliged to leave the diocese of Quebec. In 1851, for further criminal actions, he was deprived of all the faculties which had been given to him in the diocese, and formally interdicted by Bishop Bourget. After professing penitence, he was given a further chance, but in 1856 he was suspended by Bishop O'Regan for fresh misconduct, and in 1858 was finally excommunicated by Bishop Duggan publicly and in the presence of a great concourse of people. f £he general view of' his character by those who knew him best may be clearly gathered from the following extract from a letter written by M. Mailloux, Vicar-General of Quebec, to Bishop Smith, then Administrator of Chicago. The letter was written before Chiniquy's final excommunication and several months prior to his ' conversion ' to Protestantism — the original is now in the possession of the Rev. Sydney Smith : ' I have lived here [at Bourbonnais, "the last scene of Chiniquy's labors as a Catholic] since one year. In Canada I knew Mr. Chiniquy very well. I know what his conduct was morally, but the moment is not favorable to mention it. Before interdicting Mr. Chiniquy, Bishop O'Regan had received grave testimonials regarding the moral conduct of Mr. Chiniquy. I am fully acquainted with the facts and persons concerned. . . Mr. Chiniquy had in Canada, and still has here, the reputation of being a man of most notorious immorality. The many women he has seduced, or tried to seduce, are ready to testify thereunto. Those who in this country [Bourbonnais] have lived in Mr. Chini- ' qny's intimacy loudly proclaim that he has lost his faith long ago, and that he is an infamous hypocrite. 3

Such being the moral character- of the two 'authors,' it is easy to deduce tke probable quality of their writings. If the source is impure tlie streams -will be impure also. We have ourselves again and again in these columns exposed the filthy nature cf the publications under discussion. In further proof that the banned books are in fact in the last degree immoral and obscene we quote non-Catholic testimony of the most disinterested and unimpeaeable kind. Mr. C. H. Middleton, ' a , staunch Protestant,' writes in the columns of the Melboxirne Argus, ' publicly agreeing with the Very Rev. Dean Phelan, V.G., that the book referred to by Mr. Snowball is abominable,' and he has ' no hesitation in denouncing this as a disgusting book.' A number of other Protestant correspondents write heartily endorsing Mr. Middleton's view. A Presbyterian correspondent of the Sydney Bulletin, after quoting the passage already cited by us from Chambers 3 Encyclopaedia — ' a Presbyterian work, edited by a Presbyterian, and. pub-, lished by a Presbyterian firm, in a Presbyterian country ' — adds his own personal testimony as follows : ' For unadulterated filth the hooks are both hard to beat. . . I have found the awful things in the hands of innocent country girls, their misguided mothers, misguided by such remarks as those just made by Snowball, thinking it was right that they should read* them.. . . Yes, it was high time the books were "put on our national index expurgatorius. They should have been there years ago.' * The Sydney Bulletin itself — certainly the least squeam---ish of papers — joins in the chorus of condemnation of the filthy books championed by Grand Master. Snowball. They are, it says, ' pornographic works which make a certain appeal to the callow young citizen with a prurient mind. . . . These inartistically unsavory volumes can mostly be found hidden away with other works whose only claim to the shilling or eigliteenpence of the passer-by is the aroma of impropriety -which- surrounds them.' And as a , piece of practical, and, so to speak, expert evidence of the most damning and conclusive kind we may state that, in Melbourne, a sergeant of police and a detective both assured the editor of this, paper that the Chiniquy pro- " duction was found as a sort 'of text-book in Melbourne houses of ill-fame.

Limitations of space prevent our dealing with other phases of this subject. We could nil" many pages of this paper with denunciations, by decent Protestants, of the sort of printed filth that Grand Master Snowball would admit without restriction to infect the homes of Australia. But let this one parting judgment suffice. 'It is an extract from the views expressed regarding Chiniquy's productions by a representative Protestant, Mr. F. H. Baker, and'published in his paper, the Halifax Mayflower, in 1876: ' The man's mind seems to be one mass of corruption and grovelling lust. He would impute sinister and impure motives to the very mother of his Saviour — nothing is too holy or sacred for his slime to cover, or his impious hand to clutch. His personal appearance, as we saw him at the Halifax Hotel, was not particularly prepossessing, and now that we have read his book we can quite' understand the very deformity of soul that is stamped upon those repulsive features. We ask any man who has any soul, who has the slightest deference -or "respect for women, who loves his wife and little ones, who almost worship the name of mother, to read Chiniquy's book, and then ask himself if it can be possible if- such a viper as this can be received with open arms into the bosom of any church— not only received but actually ordained as a minister of Christ, and allowed to preach salvation to anything that is made in the image of God. "We defy any man, we care * not how devilish his ingenuity, or low ctinning, to devise to write or hint at anything half -so disgusting, so sickening, so horrible in all its details, as this clergyman's work on the lust of that church of which he was for twenty years, according to his own account,, a devoted follower. We would hot have it on our soul — it would stain it like blood — to publish even in this worldly paper an extract of this vile work in English; we could not look into the eyes of >our wife and children and do it; but educated and matured men may ponder over a few titbits from this reverend clergyman's table of- delicacies, if they can muster up courage enough, to wade through the book; we would -not read it again for its weight in gold. There. is something.s imply indescribably horrible , about it. We are no saint, nor are we Roman Catholic; we -have read the works of Geo. Sand, Eugene Sue, and Paul'de Kock; we are not at all thin-skinned, and know what life in large cities is ; but we have to thank Pere Chiniquy -for one particularly poisonous, sickening sensation that stifles us like a blast from the lowest depths of hell; and nil we have to say in conclusion, of these painful lines is that God knows we pity from the bottom of our heart any man or woman in possession of their rational faculties who can take this human monster by the hand, who can sit under his teachings, and listen to Iris impious voice ascend in very mocking to the throne of God, and call it Prayer."