A Royal Quarry
Only a few weeks have gone by since attention was drawn in these pages to the exceptional vulgarity with which Princess Margaret's personal life was being treated in the headlines of a national paper. The Home Secretary himself subsequently reproved the offending paper in a public speech, and it was assumed by most people that the courteous and ample editorial apology afterwards published had marked the end of this species of persecution of the King's second daughter. The Princess's short holiday in Italy has, how- ever, seen a recrudescence of the same behaviour in its most thought- less form. It may be true that the photographers who disguise themselves as peasants and boatmen in order to photograph the Princess in a bathing suit are Italian photographers, but the news- papers which published them were English newspapers, and English, too, are the pack of male and female correspondents who pursue their royal quarry through the streets of Naples, the ruins of Pompeii and the grottoes of the island of Capri. Apart from the question of whether the supply of information about the Princess's every move really fulfils a nation-wide demand (and in matters of this sort it is hard to know where loyal interest ends and illegitimate curiosity begins), there is the major point that the Princess herself has declared that she wishes to avoid publicity during her holiday. The task of royalty, never an enviable one, is now increasingly arduous, and it is surely not too much to ask that a young Princess who performs her numerous public duties with grace, intelligence and gaiety should have her wishes respected during her brief period of relaxation from public service ?
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