" THE OTHER HALF " [To the Editor of Tim
SeEcrivroa.1
Stn,—I read in your issue of January lllth a review by Mark Benney of a book by an " underworldling," in which there is an incident of a " fugitive sex-adventure" between (I think) the author and a " girl-hobo " on a beach. Having taken off his clothes to " " them with the help of the girl-hobo, the morning sun awakened his virility, and they sported together with a line simplicity, like young animals. I am quoting the words from memory, but they are the sort of words that quickly imprint themselves on the mind ; and, respectable mother and grandmother as I am, I yet was seized with the sense of primitive adventure, and II ght " Why shouldn't they ? " And yet I know that what they did was essentially wrong. It is wrong--because it contains the elements of the vice that is disintegrating society. Those two may not actually have broken up homes, brought diseased children into life, or cast them parentless adrift upon the world, but their action was the same as the actions that produce those results. Why glorify it ?
Mark Benney, as we know from his own arresting book, has seen enough of the misery that results from vice. Can he not now avoid presenting vice in an attract ive light ? Is to sport together sexually, with a fine simplicity like animals, the ideal that is going to help the young to pull the world out of the trouble it is in today ?—Yours faithfully, ELSA It SUI I MOND.
.Master's Lodge, Downing College, Cambridge.
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