The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-04-29 00:00:00

CHALLENGE EXTRAORDINAIRE.

(From the Montreal Herald, March 19th.)
The Roman prelate and priests of Montreal ; Messrs. Con-
roy, Quarter, and Schneller, of New York ; Messrs. Fen wick,
nad Byrne, of Boston; Mr. Hughes, of Philadelphia; the arch-
prelate of Baltimore, and his subordinate priests; and. Cardi—
nal England, of Charleston, with all other Roman.priests ; and
every other nun from Bailin's Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, are
hereoy challenged to meet an investigation of the truth of
Maria Monk's "awful disclosures," before an impartial assem-
bly, over which shall preside seven gentlemen : three to be se-
lected by the. Roman priests: three by the Executive Commit-
tee of the New York Protestant Association : and the seventh,
as chairman, to be chosen by the other six.
. An eligible place in New York shall be appointed, and the
regulations for the decorum and order of the meetings, with all
other arrangements, shall be made by the above gentlemen.
All communications upon this subject from any of the Roman
priests, or nuus, either individually or as delegates for the su-
periors; addressed to the Corresponding Secretary of the New
Yoik Protestant Association, No. 142, Nassau-street, New
York, will be promptly answered.

THE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN for the HOUSES of
PARLIAMENT.

• After an unprecedented delay on flip- part of the official peo-
ple and the amateur Commissioners, the four sets of drawings
to which those gentlemen had. awarded the prizes for superior
'fitness and elegance, have been sent from the, " Woods and
Forests" to the new National Gallery, there to be placed in
juxta position with their antagonists. We suppose it will take
a day or two to make the new arrangements ere the public cu-
riosity, which is .very great, can be indulged by their exposition.
The architects' catalogue raisonne, also, which is an interesting
national record of this high, scientific, and graphic contest,
will require the four additional descriptions to be added, if the
authots should think. proper to send them for that purpose,
which, 'we think, they are bound to do without delay. As
to. these four sets of designs, we shall defer giving a
particular description of them, until we shall see them placed
in their proper situations, when the public will perCeive that
the short notice we gave of their nierits-a, fortnight since was
correct, and that the observations we found it our duty to
make upon the decisions of the Commissioners are corn;
pletely borne out by those designs ; as the cause of their
being so long withheld from the public will be obvious to every
one who may then see them in the gallery. It is now quite
clear that, if the competing architects, and the friends
of the fine arts and of justice in the House of Commons, had
not strenuously exerted themselves to compel this act of
the public right to review and to give their opinions upon the
merits of the various candidates engaged in this important
contest—it is evident, we say, that the juggling tricks which
have so palpably been employed in certain quarters would
have succeeded in keeping the public in the dark long enough
to secure the job to the mystifying party, to the great injury
and disappointment of the nation. Having gained this point,
it is hoped that the competing architects will follow it up, in
conjunction with their parliamentary friends, until some inde-
peudent-minded and truly skilful architect shall be chosen, with-
out any reference whatever to the absurd judgment pronounced
so pedantically and verbosely in that curious specimen of ama-
teur composition .known as "The Report of the Architectural
Commissioners." Themore that strange and apparently shuffl-
ing state paper is examined, the more strongly are all the
payties anxious for fair play, in and out of parliament, con-
vinced that this. paper ought not to have been received Ly the
house as a competent or definitive judgment. As gentlemen,
we very much. respect. the amateur commissioners ; but here our
admiration ends, for we will not yield up a grand principle co-
eval with high art, in all lands and ages, to please any set of
men in existence; for we do .say that it is a very gross mistake
to place the works and professional characters of our architects
in the hands of gentlemen amateurs, who, however highly their
own immediate coterie may admire them, are, and such persons
ever must be, wholly incompetent to arrive at a correct judg-
ment in matters of high practical consideration, requiring not
only immense experience, but considerable mathematical skill
and great depth of knowledge in various other sciences.—
Morning Herald.