THE CENSORSHIP OF THE DRAMA
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your article upon "The Censorship Of the Drama" reminds me that arising out of the Report (1909) of the Joint - Committee, Mr. Herbert Samuel, as he then was, Under Secretary of State at the Home Office, seriously considered an alternative to the present system, and I was more than once asked to confer with him at the House of Commons upon the expediency of placing the power now exercised by the Lord Chamberlain in the hands of a C,ommittee of the Privy Council, a plan that while relieving a great Officer of State of an invidious duty, would have preserved the Eliza- bethan tradition by the transfer of the task to a body in close relation to the Crown.
In this connexion there appeared in the Times Literary Supplement some time ago a pleasing story of Charles II., who, upon information that a new comedy contained many things of a scandalous nature, suspended the representation until it had been reviewed at the competent hands of Sir John Denham and Edmund Waller, and gave instructions to these gentlemen that the company responsible should take heed not to expose upon the stage anything that was " prophane, scandalous or scurrilous."—I am, Sir, &c., ALXERIC FITZROY. Travellers' Club, Pall Mall, S.W.1.
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