he believes necessary in the interest of public morality. A manager is, therefore, put under conditions quite different from those which surround a publisher; an actor is fenced in by preliminary restrictions which do not trouble an author. There is no censorship of the press; there is a censorship of the theatre. If a publisher brings out any book which is grossly indecent or immoral or blasphemous, he can be prosecuted, and if a conviction be obtained he can of course be punished. But there is no way of preventing him from bringing out the book; there is no authority which has to be appealed to beforehand for its sanction. "Is this right?" The question is still asked, Why should the people of these countries submit to a censorship of the press? What can be the comparison between the harm done by a play which is seldom seen more than once by the same person, and is likely to be forgotten a week after it is seen, and the evil done by a bad book which finds its way into households, and lies on tables, and may be read again and again until its poison has really corrupted the mind? Again, a parent is almost sure to exercise some caution when he is taking his children to a theatre. He will find out beforehand what the play is like, and whether it is the sort of performance his daughter ought to see. But it is out of the question to suppose that a parent will be able to read beforehand every book that comes into his house in order to make sure that it contains nothing which is unfit for a girl to study. Why then not have a censorship of the press as well as of the theatre, or why have the one if you will not have the other? The answer to the first question is that a censorship of the press is impossible in England. The multitude of publications forbids it. The most imaginative person would find his imagination fail him if he tried to realize in his mind the idea of the British public waiting for its morning {98} newspaper several hours while the censor was crawling over its columns to find out whether they contained anything that could bring a blush to the cheek of a young person. It would be ridiculous to put in force a censorship for books which had no application to newspapers. But it is quite easy to maintain a certain form of censorship over the theatres. The number of plays brought out in a year is comparatively small. The preparation for each new play after it has been written and has passed altogether out of its author's hands must necessarily take some time, and there is hardly any practical inconvenience, therefore, in its being submitted to the Lord Chamberlain for his approval. But then comes the question, Is the censorship of any use? Are we any the better for having it? Should we not get on just as well without it? The answer, as it seems to us, ought to be that the censorship is on the whole of some use; that we are better with it than without it. It would be idle to contend that it is of any great service to public