S1R,—Pace Mr. Joyce Cary, this is not a simple issue
of censorship. It more urgently concerns the ethics of acquisition, and raises the ques- tion why an organised society should permit certain of its members to pander to human frailties and debase the imagination for the sole purpose of making money. Horror comics do not represent either of the expressions of the intellect and imagination which ought to he defended : extension of knowledge, and opinions disseminated because they are vigor- ously held. Instead, they are fantasies of cruelty that are the sadistic equivalent of 'feelthy pictures'—whose repression Mr. Cary does not condetnn. Their proprietors perform an analogous function in our society to pro- curers of women, and perform it for the same reason, namely, to make money; and similar treatment by the law need not involve any principle of liberty of opinion or of freedom of access to knowledge. The danger Mr. Cary fears, of repression of horror comics being used to facilitate censorship of opinion and suppression of knowledge, could be more suc- cessfully countered by concentrating attention on the sordid, avaricious, and power-lusting cynical commercial basis of these and any kindred pictorial publications, than by in- voking principles of liberty and laissez-faire.-- Yours faithfully,
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