10 APRIL 1953, Page 4

Although, like the Spectator, it is published once a week,

I doubt whether Reveille is among our most dangerous rivals; the two periodicals cater for rather different tastes. There is therefore no reason to suspect " Britain's All-Family -Weekly Newspaper " of attempting to damage our credit by revealing that the building in which these words are being written was "within living memory a fantastic temple of shame." " In July, 1901, a devil disguised as a god came to 99 Gower Street, with a wife twelve years older and twelve stone heavier than himself, and rented rooms. Their object was to lure into the building as many young women as they could, and rob them of their wealth and honour." So well did Mr. and Mrs. Horos (as the ill- matched pair of miscreants were called) succeed in their lurid enterprise that six months later, while the crowd outside the Old Bailey shouted "Crucify them!", they were sent to prison for fifteen and seven years' respectively. What odd, impersonal places big cities are, and how inconceivable it is that in the country, or even in a small town, one should frequent a house (as I have this one) for twenty-two years without being aware that it had been the setting of a cause 'celebre in 1901.

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