Putman's Defence [pp. 542-547]

542 Putnam's Defence.
PUTNAM'S DEFENCE.
OUR readers will remember, we in our reply, one of which is of no
presume, that futnarn's Magazi~ie for importance, and the other is one in
July last - contained an article whid~ which it is decidedly, not to say maattracted some attention, under the ti- liciously wrong.
ile-of" Our Established Church," and The two points disputed we proto which we replied in our number ceed to dispose of. The Magazine
for the August following; the same charged the corporation of the city
magazine for last month, in an article with granting leases of valuable sites
entitled "The Unestablished Church," for Catholic institutions for a long term
comes out with its defence, of which of years at a m'erdy nominal rent.
we should be,uncivil not to take some We replied that only one such
notice. lease had been granted since 1847,
The July article, wntten in an un- which is not technically exact, and
successful vein of irony, was directed we overlooked the fact that the lease
against the honor both of the church for the site of the Catholic Orphan
and the city and State of New York, Asylum between Fifty-first and Fiftyand was designed to show that the second streets bears the date of ~8~7;
church, grasping at wealth and pow- but by the M~~gaz~~e's own showing,
er, and skilfully availing herself of though technically a new lease, and
political ~assions and party divisions, so recorded, it was really only a
had obtafned from the State`and city change in the tenure of the old lease.
governments ~ndowments for herself Catholics had held and occupied the
and subventions for,hrr: educational site under a lease from the city, and
and charitable institutipns out of - all at the same rent as now, for years
proportion to any g~~)~~~~ to similar before 1847. So much for the first
Prot~stant, institutions. We replied point.
that the endowments are imaginary, The Magazine charged that the
for the church here is unendowed; State paid out, in 1866, for benefacthat the subventions are greatly ex- tions under religious control $ 129,aggerated; that several alleged had 025.14, of which $ 124,174.14 went
never been made, while others said to the religious purposes of the Cato have been made to Catholic were tholic Church. Not being able to
in fact made to ~rotestant institu- find any proof of this, and regarding
tions; and that Catholics had never the unsupported statement of the
received a tithe of what was requisite writer as presumptive evidence of
to place them on an equality in falsehood rnther than of truth, we
regard to subventions from the public let the charge pass without any atwith non-Catholics. The Magazine, tempt at a specific refutation. The
though with exceeding ill grace, con- Ma&azine reiterates the statement, and
cedes nearly all that we denied, aban- refers to the report of the comptroller
dons its assumption that ours is the of the State. We have the compestablished church, confesses that it troller's report before us; we have
is unestablished, and disputes us, ex- examined and ree~xamined it; but we
cept with sneers and exclamation- do not find the statement in it or
points, only in regard to two statements any thing to warrant it; and it has