IN TIMES when I find it all too regular an
occur- rence to be preparing an obituary notice for a departed contemporary, it is pleasant to be able to welcome one which was buried a few years ago but has obstinately refused to remain under- ground : John 0 London's. Its new headquarters are down the way from us in Bloomsbury; and on Monday its revivers, Mr. Ernest Kay and Lord Darwen, presided over a party to celebrate its re- appearance early next month. Stupidity was re- sponsible for its disappearance a few years back —the stupidity of the business mind which assumed that the profit (there was a profit) was not large enough to justify the journal's place on the firm's big machines; so the journal must be killed off, without bothering to consider whether readers might be willing to sustain it for its own sake, in quiet independence. I was interested to hear at the gathering that there are still John 0' London's reading circles in places as far away as the West Coast of America—indicating a faith in its staying-power which has now been justified.
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