Kentucky Gazette

TO THE IMPARTIAL PUBLIC.

VARIOUS rumors being of late very industriously circulated, designed and started to
prejudice the moral character of the Sisters of
Charity, who conduct St. Catharine's Female
Academy in this city, and of the Rev. Edward
McMahan, who is now absent from the city, calculated to injure their school, if credited, I have
taken the trouble to ascertain the origin of those
rumors, and have found that they have no basis in
truth or probability; and consequently must be
the result of envy, malice or reckless wickedness.

Having female relatives and others under my
guardianship, who are daily inmates of that institution, and will so continue, and whose reputation
is dearer to me than their lives or mine, and knowing the heavenly and practical virtues of the Sisters of Charity, and the extraordinary purity of
conduct and moral worth of the Rev. E. McMahon, I feel justified, upon my own personal responsibility, and without the suggestion of any human being, to state, that if any decent individual
will make a charge of immoral conduct, in any
definite form, against the said Sisters of Charity,
or either of them, or against the said Rev. E. McMahon, I will and do pronounce such individual
a wicked calumniator of innocence; and I will
admit those words to be strictly actionable, as
much so, and as injurious, as if I were to charge
such an individual with being a cold blooded assassin, or guilty of any other felony, and I will hazard all that I am worth, or ever expect to be,
upon the issue.

I would not thus obtrude myself upon the public, if it were not for the cruel and unremitted efforts which are made to poison the public mind
against the religion in which it was my fortune to
be born & educated, & upon which those nearest
and dearest to me, in common with a large majority of christendom, rely for eternal salvation, and
to persecute and deprive Catholics of the liberty
of conscience, by rendering them, and their pastors and institutions odious and suspected, and by
slandering meritorious and helpless females of
that denomination. The subjoined statement of
the Hon. James E. Davis, Mayor of the City of
Lexington, and Charlton Hunt, Esq. and the Hon.
Fielding L. Turner, will, I am sure, be satisfactory to a just community.

THOMAS M. HICKEY.
Lexington, 24th July, 1836.

Certain reports having been circulated prejudicial to the moral character of the Rev. Edward
McMahon, and calculated to injure that highly
respectable and useful institution in this city, conducted by the Sisters of Charity, the undersigned
visited the school to learn what foundation there
was for said reports: they had known Mr. McMahon intimately for several years, and had always
considered him a pious christian, and a most excellent man, and two of us had been patrons of
the institution, and they are gratified to say, that
in the investigation of the facts that gave rise to
the rumors unfavorable to Mr. McMahon, nothing was heard calculated to weaken, in the slightest
degree, our entire and unqualified confidence in
the purity of his life as a man or a christian, and
in the institution. They had a private and unreserved interview with the females of the school, and learnt the following facts from them: That on the evening of
the 21st inst. the female boarders at the school,
who numbered about thirty, and occupied two upper rooms in the dormitory, were about retiring to
bed, having in the room a lighted lamp; two
small girls about 7 and 10 years of age were in
the lower room with one of the Sisters, having also a light. The sister left the room for a few moments, when some one came to the door, which
was unlocked, and knocked loudly at it, and then
knocked loudly at the window shutter. The little girls ran up stairs and told what they had
heard,—some of the younger girls commenced
screaming, which became contagious, and several
of them screamed and upset the lamp. This occurred about eight o'clock in the evening, some
twenty yards from the main dwelling occupied by
the sisters, in a populous part of the city, where
the screams of a single female would bring hundreds to her assistance in a few moments. Mr.
McMahon at the time, was engaged at vespers, or
evening service in the community in a different
house. All the girls, who are of various ages,
from six to sixteen, declared promptly and indignantly, that nothing occurred to create the slightest suspicion that Mr. McMahon had any agency
in the alarm. They expressed the opinion, in
which we fully concur, that the knocking was the
work of some mischievous boy, black or white,
who wished to amuse himself by alarming them,
the yard being thrown open to the street, by the
buildings of the church now in progress. The foregoing are literally all the facts that have given
rise to the reports unfavorable to Mr. McMahon.
The public will doubtless consider them a slight
basis upon which to found charges injurious to a
respectable man,—and to meritorious females,
whose lives are dedicated to the cause of education and charity,

JAS. E. DAVIS,
CHARLTON HUNT,
F. L. TURNER.

41-3t