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Show I'lR'S EFFECT ON j BRITISPNOSI I Don't Believe That War Has I Wrecked British Neutrality, I Says Marie Corelli j 1 By MARIE CORELLI j a Famous Authoress, who Wrote "Thel- 3 p ma," "Barabas," "Soul of LHIIth" i Q and "The Sorrows of Satan." a (Copyright 1920, by the Newspaper En- 3 s terprise Association LONDON, Way 14. Some of our Eu- g lopean friends, and many of our trans 3 g Atlantic ones also, have expressed a fl quite reasonable fear that "the nien-'J 5C tality of the British people has beenM seriously, even dangerously affected fe by the war." i One leading French journal recently i devoted three columns to "Le Peril h 1 Mental," .that is, the mental peril of - 3 S . Great Britain. I 3 W This is no cause for wonder. The p I British brain would truly seem to be Hj j 'wavering in the balance and the Brit- I W ish common sense degenerating into a senile decay. j jfe What with the wide and ridiculous j P3 publicity given to the self-delusions ; p and wilful hallucinations f neurotic h ' persons craving for notoriety, and the ! tlamboyant advertisement bestowed K on the despicable and unfilial conduct i of a girl who ran away from her par- I yC ents on the wicked pretense of com- 5 K mitting suicide, merely to be away 3 p with her lover, and tho disgustingly in- 3 jC accent pictures of semi-naked women i in the journals of "society and fash- t h ion" it is only natural to conclude that 1 J'C the once restrained, reserved, dignified 3 SS. and home-loving people of Britain 2 win; inn twuuuh. nue ine uncivilized j savages or wild beasts in a jungle. g But let me assure my American J readers that it is not the "peoplo" who' J are to be judged in these matter?. S They are not insane. They are not 1 3 scuttling about naked and unashamed 'I as the low pictorials represent them.'X They are altogether isolated and apart is from such antics. j 3 -The whole degrading business is I started and kept by the press ; and not a every quarter of the press cither. Only 5 those particular sections which emplov C Cheap Small Boy. The Cheap Small j Boy is taken on the staff of certain t I journals to create "sensations." " k I Oliver Lodge, Conan Doyle and Vale l I Owen are all "nuts" to the Cheap I Small Boy. He cracks them with avid- S ity and divides their kernels over g whole areas of newspapers. Z "Strained Relations" Made to Order i j The vagaries of "spiritualism" and "spiritualists" would all have been ig I kill fi-.. t , HI. . , UUL iui -luu VI1UHI OIIIUI1 iJOV. The "strained relations" hinted at aY becoming manifest between Great Brit-1 iaIn and the United States are the work jof the Cheap Small Boy. ! I Seeing and knowing this, I, as an in-! dependent author, bound by neither' ' fear nor favor, earnestly ask all my readers to realize the Cheap Small iBoy's existence, and not to put his I muddle and meddle down to tho people of Great Britain,, The people are not the pres. t tlie present juncture, "especially, they should be wholly dissociated dis-sociated Trom It. " I Tho people of Britain are as good,! as Tine, as sane and sound a people as can -be found anywhere the so-! so-! called "popular" press is as bad, corrupt, cor-rupt, aa time-serving and unprincipled as any profiteering business In all the world. And the people know iL j The plain British "man-iri-the-street"j ;has a wholesome "contempt for it and, for the Cheap Small Boy it employs! to raise "scares" and exploit frauds, nnrl tnk-pR i! nf tic . w vfii iniuuiiuii. Lor him if he believes In the spiritualism of some of tho people he exploits and he smiles compassionately. As a matter of plain fact, it is the Cheap Small Boy that works up all our international and home dissensions. He blazons a lio today in order to confute con-fute it by another lie tomorrow. In tho "spiritualistic" craze he finds a field for his mock-serious and utterly utter-ly stupid vaporings, and he has neither conscience or considerattiqn for the things adjudged sacred by the bulk of the British people. He knows well enough that the "mediums" who take money for fooling neurotic .people are only the Inferior imitators of similar imposters who have In previous ages sought to delude mankind such as Cag-liostro Cag-liostro and others skKilled in trickery. And he calculates (as unfortunately ho Is able to do) on an only too evident phase in tho social ethics of the hour the laxity and general flabbiness of the churches. If ho rrn r-.:rnnrn rn hlnonlmmv nnA j atheism lie docs it gladly. One may . ,think of stern old Carlylo's adjuration "Oh, it's fl 'htful when a whole na- m Hon has fc otten God! has remem- m bored only ..fammon and what Mam- if rann leads to!" H This is the chief cause of the mad- 3 ness of "spiritualism" not only one nntion, but many, have "forgotten g God" and thfe Cheap Small Boy press is the aider and abbellor of the disas- 1 trous forgetfulness. Those who adjure H the Higher Spiritualism invariably B deal with tho lower, and he who shuts 5 the door ngalnst God, opens It to the S devil. It has always been so and al- T ways will be so. No ono has oven been a more devout B disciple of spiritualism in its highest, 1 moat divine sense than myself and in 1 every book I have written, I have I sought to raise my renders above the level of materialism to the height of those loftier sciences which tproVe the soul's advancement, and the happiness of the Hereafter, which could not possibly pos-sibly be Interrupted by a compelled re turn to each through any "modium" whatsoever. To begin with, a released soul does, nob speak uny known lnng- uage centalnly not bad English 1 But I am not. (thank God) a favorite Q : wth the Cheap Small Boy, on the Brit- 1 ish press. He has never read anything I have written, and boasts of It, I 1 boast of it, too! It's a rare thing (0 I be proud of. I I do earnestly request our American I friends to set mischief down to the 1 source from whence it springs, the 1 Cheap Small Boy. H0 aid more to fo- 1 r meht the Groht War than anv othdr K .influence. He is doing more 'now to B sow discord among our people than U can bo easily Imagined. 1 .Influenza "Spread" His Invention 9 Our govomnienls may have as mnnv 1 faults as they have difficulties, hut the 1 Chimp Small Boy will make their Case 1 aM'criss-croSss" as be can. He sonic- 1 limes uscsUhe editorial "We" but he'e R only I he Cheap Small Boy playing peok-a-boo. He's the wicked "sensation "sensa-tion seekCi" the exploiter of murder, j ! bigamy and low sexualism, taking a1 fevered delight in selecting cases of moral and menial lapses In members of the social community, and giving them "scare" headlines in the same style as he trealr an outbreak of Influenza. Influ-enza. (It may be Baid that the "spread" of influenza itBelf has always been largely due to the Chea,p Small Boy's "spreading" of it). It would be well It we could tie the Cheap Small Boy up In a sack and drown him in the deep sea only the probability isthat he would rise like a cork and wave a new "scare" heading head-ing as to his "spiritual" visions! Anyway, good American friends, learn to know him when you see or hear him bellowing lies through a newspaper megaphone. Don't mistake the British public for the Cheap Small Boy of the Brtish press! 00 |