ALLEGED ATTEMPT TO MURDER THE “ESCAPED NUN.”

Dunstan Times, Issue 1245, 8 January 1886, Page 3

ALLEGED ATTEMPT TO MURDER THE “ESCAPED NUN.”

( Wellington Press. J 1 During the time that Mrs O’Gorman Auffray, the “ Escaped Nun," was in Hamilton,, says our correspondent, it was reported that a atone had been thrown at and struck the omnibus in which she was being conveyed from her first evening’s lecture to her hotel. In fact, the first known of the affair was when Mr Auffray, later on at night, himself Went down to the local pajfer office to see about his' advertisement, and mentioned ip conversation that a stone or some other missile, had been thrown at the omnibus, remarking that perhaps after all, the matter was not worth mentioning; and no doubt if the stone was thrown it was the silly act of some small boy larrikin. There was no gathering iu the street when Mrs Auffray left the hall, indeed Protestants and Roman Catholics in Hamilton were alike indifferent to the Nun and her lectures. The ‘ bus was subsequently examined, and there was no sign of its highly varnished panels having hi en struck by a stone or by au thing else. The report found its way into an Auckland evening paper in an exaggerated fond, but no one here thought it worth while to notice or contradict the statement in that pa I ter. The ‘Protestant Standard.’ however, of the 23th, a paper published in Sydney, contains under the heading, ‘The Escaped Nun in New Zetland : Cowardly attempt to kill her at Hamilton ! ’ a paragraph which comindices as follows: ‘While Mrs O’Goman A nth-ay, Tue Esciped Nun. was returning from her lecture at Hamilton, Waikato, New Zealand, she and her husSand were most brutally and cowardly assaulted by a mob of Romanists, or rather deluded tools of priests. This is always Rome’s treacheious way,’ &c. The remainder with the exception ot the words, ‘ This time it was only bottles and stones Slung at the omnibus in which sat Professor --and JMt, .Auffray,’ is simply abuse of Rome, and therefore not to the point. Now this open ca’umny on the Hamilton public is wholly the outgrowth of the alleged throwing of a single -tone, of which there is no proof, but which,if thrown, was probably thrown by some boy, who would as readily have thrown it at a yellow dog or a cit as at the * Escaped Nun.’ Be that as it may, the statements of .the Sydney ‘Standard ’ are gross fabrications and calum nious misrepresentations.