Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/160

Rh Catholic Diary, the Truth-teller, the Green Banner, and other papers, made virulent attacks upon it, and one of them proposed that the publishers should be 'lynched.' An anonymous handbill was also circulated in New York, declaring the work a malignant libel, got up by Protestant clergymen, and promising an ample refutation of it in a few days. This was republished in the Catholic Diary, with the old Montreal affidavits, which were distributed through New York and Brooklyn; and on the authority of these, several Protestant newspapers denounced the work as false and malicious.

"Another charge, quite inconsistent with the rest, was made by the leading Roman Catholic papers and others, viz., that it was a mere copy of an old European work. This had been promptly denied by the publishers with the offer of 100 dollars reward for any book at all resembling it.

"Yet such is the resolution of some, and the unbelief of others, that it is impossible for the publishers to obtain insertions for the replies in the New York papers generally, and they have been unsuccessful in an attempt at Philadelphia.

"This is the ground on which the following article has been offered to us, for publication in the Star. It was offered to Mr. Schneller, a Roman Priest, and Editor of the Catholic Diary, for insertion in his paper of Saturday before last, but refused, although written expressly as an answer to the affidavits and charges his previous number had contained. This article has been refused insertion in a Philadelphia paper, after it had been satisfactorily ascertained that there was no hope of gaining admission for it into any of the New York papers.

"It should be stated, in addition, that the authoress of the book, Maria Monk, is in New York, and stands ready to answer any questions, and submit to any enquiries put in a proper manner, and desires nothing as strongly as an opportunity to prove before a court