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Page 1 of 11924 · PDF PAGE 11
… persistent silence, whatever its explan- ation, compels me to bring the essential issue to your notice in this more public matter. Your editor asserts that Mr. Crowley has served a prison sentence in America for pro- curing young girls for infamous purposes. The truth is that Mr. Crowley has never been so much as accused of any crime before any court in any country in the world. Now no honest person can pretend for a mo- ment that any legal process is needed in order to expose the absoluteness of this particular lie. A criminal conviction is a…
1924 · PDF PAGE 14
12. Your editormerely for the purpose of striking a foul blow at Mr. Crowleyhas singled out from among his colleagues three ladies who have been noble and unselfish enough to renounce their professional careers in order to help in his work. These ladies are not British subjects, but your editor has identified them quite clearly to their professional, family, and private circles in England and America. He has been vile enough to accuse them, without one conceivable atom of justification, of practising public prostitution in foreign cities. Wh…
1924 · PDF PAGE 12
…ment, must be true. 9. Now you, my Lord, as proprietor of the Sunday Express, can satisfy yourself, by a few minutes inquiry, that your editor is unable to specify the date or place of any such conviction. You can compel him to admit to you that he printed this, the most damaging libel conceivable, either without trying to verify it, or after failing to do so. You can satisfy yourself that he has not now, and never has had, one shred of evidence in support of his allegation. 10. I do not doubt that you will attribute to these facts the same mo…
1924 · PDF PAGE 13
well-known to your editorthis infamous lie was quite strictly murderous : for a man may be done to death by venomous libels far less mercifully than by cruder poisons. 11. My Lord, you cannot escape the gravest personal responsibility in this matter. Your editor could not, with any private resour- ces of his own, undertake a protracted news- paper campaign of libel. It is your wealth, in particular, that he relies on when he challenges Mr. Crowley to fill his pockets by means of an action at law. It is your capital, in various kinds, that he u…
1924 · PDF PAGE 9
…ading citizens of Cefalù, protesting against such action. No reason was given for this expulsion, nor was any charge preferred, but your editor is doubtless correct in claiming the event as the reward of his lies. The result was to reduce Mr. Crowley, who was convalescent at the time from a long and dangerous illness, to absolute destitution. At seven days notice he was torn from his family, his library, and all the resources of his craft, and obligated to live in North Africa, from hand to mouth, with his life work indefinitely suspended and …
1924 · PDF PAGE 10
…full redress of this abominable injustice. In June of this year, I placed a statement of the case before Mr. James Douglas, the literary editor of the Sunday Express, who had initiated this campaign of calumny by printing, under his own name, a grossly vituperative review of Mr. Crowleys novel The Diary of a Drug Fiend. His article misrepresented the moral purpose of that work, as recognised in numerous reviews of it by men of letters in reputable journals : it was an orgie of salacity and, in essence, a lie. I placed a copy of this statemen…
1924 · PDF PAGE 6
to the man, and to the impersonal cause of art and letterswhich can never by any possibility be remedied. Your editors lie has wrought the havoc, and more. In France, my Lord, as you are doubtless aware, any man attacked in a newspaper has the legal right to reply in its columns, and his reply must be printed in the same type and in the same place as the original attack. This law is admirably just and wise. Its effect has been to put a complete stop, in France, to this plague of anonymous defamation, whether used as the instrument of journali…
1924 · PDF PAGE 4
…cused of any crime before any court in any country in the world. The statement made in the Sunday Express is thus an absolute lie ; your editor knows that it is a lie ; and you, my Lord, are in a position to satisfy yourself conclusively that it is a lie. I submit, that as proprietor of the Sunday Expressone of the greatest forces in the news- paper world, and in the public life of the nation you are under a clear obligation to ascertain the truth in this matter, and to compel your editor to publish it in such a way as to redress the wrong wr…
1924 · PDF PAGE 15
editor has proved himself as great a coward as he is a liar. It is an intolerable outrage on the decency of English public life that this cad, backed by your wealth, should have the licence to publish to the whole world filthy libels against the personal virtue of noble women. A Baron of England, accessory after the fact to so foul and mean a crime ? I have the honour to be, Your Lordships obedient servant, Norman MUDD, M.A., Cambridge : sometime Scholar of Trinity College. Late Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, Grey University College, South A…
1924 · PDF PAGE 7
…timeagainst any serious attack on his personal honour, whether as artist, patriot or man. The iniquity of the situation created by your editors abominable lies is glaringly shown by the fact that Mr. Crowleys publishers, despite their complete sympathy and good will, feel unable, for the time being, to proceed with the publication of the work. They state that the book trade and the big libraries, in England and abroad, will boycott the book, from the start, unless the specific lies, here denounced, are first destroyed, once for all. The whol…
1924 · PDF PAGE 5
…ance, of any of the normal means of redress. The man of letters is peculiarly ill-protected against sensational newspaper calumny. Every editor and publisher must reckon, nowadays almost exclusively, not with the real truth about an author, nor with the balanced judgment of the educated reader or man of the world, but with the prejudices and passions of the masses. Unless therefore a man of letters is wealthy enough to call his traducer to instant account in court of law, the absolute falsity of a newspaper calumny will not prevent it from work…