1 AUGUST 1952, Page 5

Studying, with the care it deserved, Viscount Simon's reply to

a proposal of Lord Jowitf s in the debate on the Defamation Bill in the House of Lords on Monday, I lighted on a passage in which Lord Simon illustrated a contention by a reference to the proceedings of the Pickwick Club, and in particular to a derogatory epithet applied by Mr. Pickwick to a fellow- member—" his name, I think, was Mr. Blossom of Aldwych." That pulled me up. A reference to Aldwych in a book pub- lished in 1836, when the old name had been dormant for centuries ? Whose was the slip, the speaker's or the reporter's ? I cannot say, but truth must be vindicated, and the truth is that the gentleman's name was Blotton, which matters little, and his domicile Aldgate, which in the circumstances matters quite a lot.