"THE NAKED TRUTH"
[To the Editor of Tan SPECTATOR.] Sin,—As The Naked Truth is an exposition of the bestial chn- ditions under which so many British people are allowed to live to-day, I do not mind my book being described as a "literary brutality" by-your" reviewer, but I take the greatist exception to the following lines in the review.
"The adjective in the title really gives a better idea of the contents than the noun," and "But her -report is far more flamboyantly disgusting than a true picture would be."
Such lines can only suggest to the reader of the review than my book is not entirely genuine. By the review, your critic has had thirty years slum experience. All I can say is, is that that experience must have stopped short long ago. Were the critic still abreast of the times he would know that my book barely outlines the filthy conditions, the crime, immorality, disease and degeneration of the slums of today. He would also have discovered that those whom he describes as "poor people" have learned, at last, how to argue, dissect and discuss, from the educated men and women who are everywhere teaching them to rise in rebellion against the hideousness of their lives.
In order that it should reach the vast public which has no time for slum books founded on statistics and religion, the book was written in what is known as a popular style. Judging by the letters I am receiving from all over the country it has reached that public.
I would point out that no qualified nurse can adopt what your critic describes as a temporary nurse's role. Once a nurse, always a nurse, and, as such, is welcome in the lowest haunts and vilest hovel and able, in perfect security, to walk through the most dangerous streets, thoroughfares in which your critic would not dare show himself, after dark without police protection, toddy, in spite of the 30 years' experience. The march of improvement referred to in the review is largely imaginative. Had it been positive, and constant, - there would be no slum outcry today, r.or would the highest in the land describe slum conditions as damnable.
If Mr. Ensor would bring himself up to date so far as slum conditions are concerned, he would discover that I have flamboyantly described the slum conditions of everyday, not exceptional cases. And I would suggest that, by refraining from adversely criticizing the book, he would have done the country a service in this vital question of a people's salvation.
[Our reviewer writes : The meaning of "temporary nurse's rOle " was perfectly plain in its context. It was that the authoress, being a qualified nurse, undertook temporary nursing work in various slum areas, but had not the experi- ence of working such an area for years as a nurse regularly attached to it. That seems clearly indicated in her book. It was not her sincerity that I questioned, but her objectivity and her judgement.]
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