Dr. Logan has confessed that she swam only part of
the way across the Channel, but declared that she had swum the whole way, in order to call attention to the careless manner in which Channel swims are checked. The willingness with which the public accepted her word and showered upon her its congratulations and rewards was to be the needed proof that anybody could claim to have swum the Channel without being disbelieved. But when Dr. Logan asks us to say that her moral hoax was justified, she asks too much. When doubtful methods for reaching an end attract infinitely more attention than the end itself, the methods are self-condemned. She went through the solemn process, not only of telling lies, but of accusing French newspapers of "unsportsmanlike eon- duct" because they doubted her word—her first word,. not her second—and of receiving a cheque for £1,000. The net result is that Channel swimming is brought into more discredit than that from which Dr. Logan proposed to rescue it. It is reported that Cockney humour, with its quick sense of the apposite, has hit upon "Channel swimmer" as a new synonym for "liar."
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