The Banned Lecture

one thing of which I feel certain is that 800 children is a lot. I don’t know over how many years these practices were supposed to have spread. As I think you must all feel sure by now, I know nothing what- ever of my subject. But scientific experiment in those days was always a very prolonged operation. They thought nothing of exposing some unknown substance to the rays of the sun and moon for periods of three months at a time, in the hope that in some mysterious way the first stage of some dimly-visaged operation might be satisfactorily accomplished. And even if they sacrificed a child every day, it would have taken a matter of two and a half years to dispose of 800 children. Besides, it must have taken more than a few minutes to kidnap a child with the secrecy obviously required. Did the disappearance of the first four hundred, say, put no parents on their guard ? I think, at the best, it is a case of little Tommy who told his mother that there were millions of cats on the wall of the back garden, but under cross- examination, in the style made popular by the dialogue of Lot with Almighty God, admitted that it was “ Tom and another.” Of course, it will be obvious to you by this time that I have been seduced by Jewish gold, and the only way that I can think of to disarm your suspicions is to bring forward another case of the same kind, little more then a century old, with which Jews had nothing to do. There was a poet laureate—I am not quite sure what this species of animal is—but his name was Robert Southey, and he lived, if you can call it