THE SLATTERYS AT THAMES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7, 15 February 1900, Page 4

THE SLATTERYS AT THAMES.

A DISMAL FAILURE.

THE PINK PAMPHLETS DO THEIR WORK, (From a correspondent.) The Slatterys arrived here towards the end of last month, and the ex-priest was billed to lecture on Tuesday night, January 30. The lecture was announced by posters all over the town, handbills yalore, and advertisements in the local papers. The Catholics of the Thames were prepared for the ex-priest and his companion, the sham ex-nun. On the Sunday previous they distributed at the church door 200 pamphlets exposing the Slatterys, and a reprint of the Obsei'ver's article on the adventurers was distributed at the door of the hall where the lecture was delivered on Tuesday evening. The Rev Dr. O'Callaghan, I understand, spoke strongly against them in the Anglican pulpit, and it is said that ministers of other denominations cautioned their people against patronising the lectures. Preaching on January 28 at the second Mass at St. Francis's Church, Thames, upon the epistle of the day. ' Thou shalt not bear false witness,' etc., the Rev. Father Mahoney amongst other remarks s.ud : ' One of the greatest crimes in the code of divine or human law is that of perjury, or bearing false witness. It is punished most severely by the law of the land because it is so hurtful and detestable in the sight of (*od and man. You are aware that quite a scare has been caused in the colonies lately on account of the possible outbreak of that most dreaded scourge, the bubonic pla?ue. In Auckland the authorities are taking preventive measures by cleansing and purifying the city, so that if the plague should break out there the people being on their guard will prevent its spread. There is a remote possibility even that it might come here to the Thames, where I think that we could successfully cope with it by taking the same precautionary measures to avoid contagion. You are aware also that on next Tuesday we are to be visited with a veritable plague, a moral, or as I should rather say an immoral, plague, for as you have seen by the advertisements, that most pitiable of all God's creatures, a fallen priest, is coming to our peaceful community to spread among the citizens a plague of foul speech and obscene literature, to bear false witness against the Church of his birth and the faith of his fathers. And I feel most strongly on this matter, more strongly indeed than I can give expression to, for it is almost twenty years now, nearly a generation ago, in the happy days of youth 1 was a fellow student at St. Patrick's College of Thurles, m Ireland, with Josepli blattery, and I little thought on that fateful day when he received the great grace of the Priesthood from our former Bishop, Dr. Croke, and I knelt before him, and his hand and voice were raised to give me his first blessing as a priest, that the next time I should come in contact with him would be at the other side of the world, in my native land, and that then his hand and voice should be raised to curse me and to vilify me and my brother priests all over the world, and to blaspheme all that we hold sacred and dear. But now, as this plague is coming among us, you have some meanß at hand of purifying the public opinion of the Thames, for the editor of the N.Z. Tablet has sent to Auckland and here a large number of pamphlets for distribution, giving a history of this man and his companion, and it is by circulating these pamphlets among your Protestant friends that the evil this unfortunate priest has come to spread will be rendered harmless.' The result was that Slattery could not get any clergman in the Thames to preside at his meeting, and notwithstanding that there was no counter-attraction on the night of his first lecture the audience numbered only 44, although the hall was capable of holding 500. The following afternoon Mrs. Slattery lectured before 30 females, and on the same evening Slattery's audience was less than 30. The local papers on the day after his first appearance gave him a couple of lines of notice, merely saying that he spoke before a very sioall audience, and after that ignored him altogether. The Slattery l mission ' to the Thames has been a dismal failure, due, no doubt, to the complete exposure of the unhappy couple's antecedents made by the Tablet, and also the high respect in which the priests and nuns of the district are held by all classes here.