TRANSPLANTED IRISH INSTITUTIONS - University of Canterbury

the press and the "attitude of Dunedin papers, being severe."IIO It is worth noting that the
Orange Lodge put the number of protesters at "upwards of 200 indignant citizens." III
Despite the general disdain of some of the newspapers around New Zealand, the Deputy
Grand Master in Christchurch stated, "I feel that these meetings were productive of much
good to our order." 112
Cleary and the New Zealand Tablet felt justified by the actions of the press and
congratulated the newspapers- "The world keeps moving on. And- for Catholics at leastone
of the pleasantest signs of its progress is the enlightened and sensible attitude of the
secular press towards adventurers like the SLATTERYS, whose noisome trade it is to arouse
sectarian rancour and coin it into chinking drachmas. ll3 This self satisfaction by Cleary
was further reinforced by the way that the secular newspapers not only refused to publish
any details of the Slattery's lectures but in Dunedin the Otago Daily Times and the Evening
Star would not even allow advertisements in their papers. I 14 Twenty-one years later, Cleary
boasted that,
At my request, the Otago Daily Times and the Dunedin Evening Star, absolutely refused to take
any advertisement from such culminators as Ex-priest Slattery and his sham "ex-nun", or to report
them, or to do any printing for them, or to allow them the use of their advertising hoardings. IT
WAS THE FlRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA THAT THIS ACTION WAS
TAKEN BY ANY SECULAR NEWSPAPER AGAINST THE PROFESSIONAL SLANDERER
OF OUR FAITH. I IS
The theme of the Slatterys being a 'plague' was further enhanced by the way in
which the New Zealand Tablet described the Slatterys with such words as 'filthy', 'festering',
and 'coarse' so as to associate them with disease. Indicative of this is the description of the
SIatterys as being "a pair of fraudulent adventurers whose object is money, money, money,
and who, when they get as much of it as they can, flit to the next city or country, regardless
105
110Grand Orange Lodge of New Zealand. Middle Island. Report of Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth
Annual Session. Held in the Orange Hall. Invercargill. December 27 and 28. 1900, Christchurch, Caygill
and Co., 1901, p. 10.
lIIIbid., p. 10.
112Ibid., p. 10.
I 13New Zealand Tablet, 29 March 1900.
114Ibid., 29 March 1900.
115Cleary to New Zealand Tablet Directorate letter, 10 September 1921, Cleary Papers, Auckland
Catholic Archives.