'Ex-Monk' Widdows to Date.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 18, 1 May 1902, Page 2

'Ex-Monk' Widdows to Date.

Up The main facts in the career of the loathsome creature Widdows—so-called ' Ex-Monk ' —have been already given more than once in the columns of the N.Z. Tablet, and we only refer to the matter again for the purpose of bringing our account of his career up to date, so that our readers may be furnished with a full record of authenticated facts about him if the unsavory wretch should ever attempt to pollute this country with his presence. A week or two ago it was mentioned in these columns that Widdows had been again charged with the abominable crime for which he had received two previous convictions, and Home papers just to hand give the result of his trial on this latest charge. Widdows was charged with 'grossly indecent conduct,'" and there was a second count charging him also with soliciting the commission of an offence against public decency. Widdows pleaded not guilty. The jury, after a deliberation of three-quarters of an hour, found the prisoner guilty, and he was sentenced to two years 'hard.' We give below the statement made by the police after his conviction, as reported in the London Times, and it will serve as a sort of official nutshell biography of the impostor.

Inspector Kane said the prisoner had 'been going about the country for nearly thirty years representing- himself to be an ex-monk, but at the time he said he was admitted as a monk he was charged at a Police Court in London with robbing his partner. That case, however, was patched up. The prisoner was sentenced to five months' imprisonment at Toronto upon a similar charge to the present. In 1888 he was .sentenced at the Old Bailey to ten years' penal servitude for criminal practices. He was again charged in 1896 with an off .nee similar to the one he was now charged with, but he was acquitted. The prisoner had a hall or church in London and a following of some hundreds of people, who believed him to be a persecuted ex-member of the Roman Catholic Church. The prisoner never was a monk.' A record like this would be sufficient, one would think, to deter most decent-minded people from having anything further to do with such a scoundrel, but it is only too certain that the credulous and ignorant class of Protestants who ha\e supported Widdows in the past will receive him with open arms when he again comes out of jail to resume ministrations at the LonJon conventicle over which he pi elides. Anti-Catholic writers are fond of descanting on the ' credulity ' of Catholics but the credulity and folly of people who wilt take by the hand, and make a martyr of, a filthy wretch who has been thrice convicted of the vilest crime known to the law, certainly takes some beating.