MORALS OF TODAY [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sin,—For
forty years The Spectator has been to me a respected and welcome friend. Now I must sorrowfully add my protest against the tenor of this correspondence and against the printing of such a letter as that of Mrs. Montagu-Pollock in your issue of September 14th, which I regard as a sin against Society.
That letter is not only a betrayal of her sex and a sin against the sacredness of motherhood : as coming from one of her sex it is nicely calculated to destroy in many a young fellow those last scruples that might otherwise avail to keep him continent and clean-living, Of late, indeed, I have watched with regretful amazement the decline and fall of your paper from its former wholesome standard of taste to a very sad pitch of decadence. I can have it in my house no more.
And, The Spectator having lapsed from its former service of wholesome guidance for the public conscience on the subjects of the day, I am left to wonder, for that conscience, quis custodiet ? The comments of Janus on things and men, from cabbages to kings, may be dismissed as simply in odious taste, though very significant of the change. But now a decadent Spectator comes to print matter that points the all too easy and alluring path, as it were, to old Avernus— the path that through the ages has led the men and nations who have hearkened to the voice of the seducer to their certain doom.
A sin against the children of men and a sin against the light ! Proh pudor !—I am, Sir, yours faithfully, Gaines, Whitbourne, nr. . Worcester. ARTHUR E. WRIGLEY.
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