Organised Slander
It used to be said that the Ten Commandments had no currency east of Suez. But there are apparently regions to west of the city of riff-raff, cosmopolitanism where their operation is likewise suspended— as regards at least the precept which places a discount on bearing false wifthess against one's neighbor. Some years ago wo gave particulars of a bureau of anti-Catholic slander that was conducted by a Swiss criminal and had itg headquarters in Milan. His methods werie a, complete departure from the usual style of no-Popery calumny, with its studied vagueness, and its careful suppression of names of persons and places, dates, and other circumstances that would facilitate investigation. The Swiss gaol-bird's bureau filled in the minutest details and rounded off a tale that would deceive the elject and make Ananias green witjh envy. Inquiry, however, almost invariably elicited the fact 4 that the names were all fictitious, the dramatis pefr&onae of the bureau's anti-
priest and an'ti-convetnt tales nonrexdstent, and the whole business a fabrication from beginning to end. But in the meantime the evil tale had gone round the earth on seven-league boots, while slow-paced truth was drawing on its sandals. L'Estrange, in his ' Fables,' tells of a cavalier who ordered his lawyer to draw up the sort of affidavit that would suit his case— a false one, to wit ; ' and let me alone,' he declared, 'to do the part of a gentleman and swear to ir ' Among the ' ca\ulieis ' that conduct the anti-clerical gutter-press of Continental Europe and its foreign echoes there is a steady demand for anti-prieslt and anti-convent fiction. The SwissMilanese bureau played to them the part of the pettifogg)Lng^ lawyer. And the canialiier si swore 'like 'gentlemen ' to the truth and honor-ibirigEt of every concocted tale. We had a part in exposing the perjured character of Isome of the Swiss-Milanese productions that found their way; into the New Zealand secular press. The operations of the sJanderous association ceased through the imprisonment of its principal for a nameless and abominafole crime against morality.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZT19050713.2.2.1
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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 28, 13 July 1905, Page 1
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342Organised Slander New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 28, 13 July 1905, Page 1
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