'The case in which I was involved has become known as the 'Montagu Case'; because one of the accused men was a peer, it received a great deal of publicity. But in essentials, it was not very different from hundreds of cases which come before the courts every year. These attract little attention, but each of them implies the downfall, and perhaps the ruin, of a human being. In the last few years there had been much discussion of this question, and many authoritative men and women have given their views about the prevalence, nature, prevention, punishment and cure of homo sexuality. There have not, I think, been any among them who could say, as I do now: 'I am a homosexual'.

'I am no more proud of my condition than I would be of having a glass eye or a hare-lip. On the other hand, I am no more ashamed of it than I would be of being colorblind or of writing with my left hand. It is essentially a personal problem, which only becomes a matter of public concern when the law makes it so. For many years I had kept it a secret from my family and friends, not so much from choice as from expediency, and I tried privately to resolve my own struggle in a way as consistent as possible with the moral law. . . When the searchlights of the law were turned on to my life, only a part of it was illuminated. I am not proud of what was exposed; most people, if they were honest, would admit that their private lives would not bear such a relentless scrutiny. It will be my task, therefore, to turn on more lights, revealing, in place of the blurred and shadowy figure of the newspaper photographs, a man differing from other men only in one respect....

While Croft-Cooke says much about the shortcomings of legal and penal systems his aloofness drains away his effect. Not so with Wildeblood. What very little he may lack in finesse and pace he more than makes up for in honesty, clarity and passion. This is not, however, as the Times Literary Supplement, said, a bitter book, by a 'man with a string of grievances. It is not a tract. It is a strong story, well told. And a story which, without unnatural forcing, comes up with some answers.

Some critics in the London press were shocked by Wildeblood's attack on British class consciousness. They also objected to 'prejudice' in his surprise that the same lawyer who so eloquently defended Croft-Cooke should with equal eloquence, as prosecutor, vehemently express horror at unthinkable immorality in this case, and Wildeblood's conclusion, regarding those lawyers who defend one day and prosecute the next, that 'At the end of a long career at the Bar they must have become like stones, washed clean of all regard for truth and it was then, by a singular

one

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