Furthermore, this passion for names is responsible for the perpetration of the grossest frauds on the public. It is notorious in Fleet Street that articles alleged to be contributed by politicians, musical comedy actresses, film stars, and professional footballers are, in fact, often not written by the illustrious who are their reputed authors. Indeed, the illustrious are as like as not incapable of writing a page of grammatical English, as is also the case with the self-advertising commercial magnate, whose reputed views on economic questions or industrial co-operation, neatly typed and flanked by carefully touched-up photographs, descend on the desks of editors in the company of the pigeon-English letters of pushful publicity agents. But this fraud on the public, and there is no other name for a species of false pretence which is growing so rapidly that it is developing into an open scandal, is, relatively, a minor affair. The real evil is that the controllers of the Press, themselves largely amateurs, are going out of their way to encourage the incursion of the amateur into what is a highly-skilled and highly-complex avocation. And that constitutes the real false pretence. It does not matter very much whether that popular film comedienne, Miss Ruby Vamp, is actually responsible or not for the article on “Should Curates Charleston?” extensively and expensively advertised by the “Daily Dope.” But it does matter if the public be led to believe that an article on foreign relations written to order by a hack journalist for the purpose of provoking a sensation or promoting the policy of a newspaper proprietor should purport to be, and should be accepted, as from the pen of an impartial diplomatic expert, who has, in fact, only lent his name in return for money or for purposes of self-advertisement.[1] [1] In December last, the Lawn Tennis Association passed resolutions prohibiting a competitor in tournaments and matches from writing articles thereon for the Press “under his own name, initials, or recognisable pseudonym,” and also from allowing a player to permit his name to be “advertised as the author of any book or press article of which he is not the actual author.” This resolution was boycotted by a portion of the Combine Press, while one newspaper distorted the attitude of the Association as representing “interference with amateurs,” and “dictating to newspaper proprietors and editors.” Imperence. III _The Dictators_