27 MARCH 1964, Page 23

To All Watchers Over Public Morality

Secret pornographers who live In your cisterns, repressed gentlemen, Gaze lewdly at you as you bath.

What a heavy burden you have to carry!

They are your selves: The utterances you have banned; They pen long nasty books and peddle them, Sure of sale (true offspring of your commission) In the rusty Paris of the pipes.. . .

Here you get the raw material From which you learn your strict duties To the public. Study them closely To reach the heart of obscenity: Long lists of bad words every schoolboy knows (Read them aloud in the echoing bathroom as relief To so much protocol); But most of all pore lovingly over That luscious glossy series depicting Policeman, truncheon and naked writer. . . .

You more than weekend in dirt.

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH