the Communists a lever against them which they have over nobody else. If Vassall had not been a homosexual, and subject to this law, the Russians might have got him anyway. I think he had a predisposition to treachery. But they could not have blackmailed him into it.

"The possibility of wrong arrest is more than enough to freeze on your lips any smile of welcome you might otherwise give an acquaintance . . . There was the case of the unfortunate Chinese gentleman who for smiling at a man and asking the way to Earls Court was promptly arrested, charged and convicted of indecent behaviour. On appeal the conviction was quashed and two policemen jailed for perjury; examples of the keeness which this law can rouse in some of its defenders."

The DAILY MIRROR discloses a vicious attack by the Greek paper ETHNIKOS KIRYX using scare headlines and old news of Vassall to try to prevent the King and Queen from going to England (they did go and got booed). The same paper reports that Mortimer Bennitt, civil servant, won an appeal against a conviction

for importuning. He was convicted by police testimony that he followed several men intc a toilet and nodded at them. The Chairman, Mr. Edward Clarke, Q.C. said the case had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt, which is an understatement, since the vice policemen, typically, did not hear or see any violation of law but imagined it in their evil minds. In a lighter vein the paper reports the marriage of April Ashley, the fashion model who was once a man, to Arthur Corbett in Gibralter. And the 400 boys, at a Royal Ordinance Corps "Junior Leaders" battalion, were told:

DON'T dye your hair. It seems that the craze had swept the camp at Blackdown, near Aldershot, after two 17-year-old corporals who play in a dance band gave their hair a color-rinse-Pink Champagne. Reason given for the order was the trouble that would be caused by change-such as new ID's etc.

The EVENING STANDARD reports that in his book IN SEARCH OF MERMAIDS, Dr. Colin Bertram tells about the Crepidula fornicata. It is a mollusc which regularly changes sex. It lives in stacks of alternating males and females and every now and then every mollusc in the stack changes sex simultaneously. Hm.m.m. Another book of interest is THE FINISHING TOUCH, by Brigid Brophy, about the wicked goings-on at Miss Antonia's academy for young girls. On the theater side there is "Norman" which is about a young farmer who has written a play and comes to stay in a house while the play is waiting to be done. The house contains a daughter having a miscarriage and a Guardsman son who is up on an importuning charge. David Andrew's study of the tongue-tied Guardsman is reported to be good by Felix Barker. And then there are the men getting steamed up in the Turkish Baths in Ironmonger Roy, Finsbury over notices which prevent them from playing cards and consuming food not purchased at the bath. Oscar Wilde is in cross-word puzzles in England.

Malcolm Muggeridge in November ESQUIRE writes for Americans an article on the English scandals. He isn't very bright though, for he feels that the way to stop homosexuality in England is merely to close down the private boarding schools for boys. If he thinks that "high-spirited, good-looking boys"

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