A CCORDING TO A Sunday newspaper that adolescent prodigy Mr. Colin
Wilson has just received a six-page letter from his Publisher, Mr. Victor Gollancz, warning him against too much Party-going, public speaking, and frivolity. This raises a nice Point of commercial law. In show business, I know, stars often have written into their contracts a clause forbidding them to Make asses of themselves in public; that shrewd sociologist 1;41.. P. G. Wodehouse has described one such case, in which Johnny Bingley, a dissolute midget employed by the Perfecto- Zizzbaum Corporation, had to be restrained by a morality Contract from night-clubbing. In the arts, too, there is the Precedent of Saki's Henri Deplis. M. Deplis had a magnificent representation of the Fall of Icarus tattooed on his back; and the municipality of Bergamo, to whom the picture belonged. were compelled to restrain his movements. They even secured all injunction to stop him bathing, in case water might affect !heir masterpiece. Mr. Gollancz has surely an equal right to be Concerned about so valuable a literary property, and to be alarmed that, every time the property opens his mouth, he succeeds in disillusioning more disciples. To judge by the .PPPerty's recent pronouncements, however, it will take more _than even six pages from Mr. Gollancz to stop the corrosion. Could Mr. Gollancz, perhaps. follow Bergamo's example and secure an injunction?
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