day was Sunday, and I arrived by sea. I was informed that
a man could not get a shave in Hull on Sunday. But I got one. At the last
meeting of the Hull Libraries Committee, when "Ann Veronica" was under
discussion, Canon Lambert procured for the name of Lambert a free
advertisement throughout the length and breadth of the country by saying:
"I would just as soon send a daughter of mine to a house infected with
diphtheria or typhoid fever as put that book into her hands." I doubt it.
I can conceive that, if it came to the point, Canon Lambert's fear of
infection and regard for his own canonical skin might move him to offer
his daughter "Ann Veronica" in preference to diphtheria and typhoid fever.
Canons who give expression to this kind of babblement must expect what
they get in the way of responses. Let the Canon now turn the other cheek,
in a Christian spirit, and I will see what I can do for him.

* * * * *

Needless to say, "Ann Veronica" was banned from the Free Public Libraries
of free Hull. But I cull the following from the _Hull Daily Mail_: "A
local bookseller had thirteen orders for 'Ann Veronica' on Monday, thirty
on Tuesday, and scores since. Previously he had no demand." A Canon
Lambert in every town would demolish the censorship in less time than it
took the Hebrew deity to create the world and the fig-tree.

* * * * *

Canon Lambert, doubtless unconsciously, went wide of the point. The point
was not a code for the parental treatment of canons' daughters. England
was not waiting for information as to what Canon Lambert would do to a
Miss Lambert in a given dilemma. H.G. Wells did not turn up in Hull with a
Gatling gun and, turning it on the Canon's abode, threaten to blow the
ecclesiastical wigwam to pieces if the canon did not immediately buy a
copy of "Ann Veronica" for his daughter to read. Nobody wants to interfere
between the Canon and a Miss Lambert. All that quiet people want is to be
left alone to treat their daughters according to their lights. Does Canon
Lambert hold that the Hull libraries are to contain no volumes which he
would not care for his daughter to read?

* * * * *

The _Hull Daily Mail_ has, I regret to say, taken the side of the Canon.
This is a pity. The Hull paper should be a little more careful about the
letters it prints. In a recent issue it allowed a correspondent to call
"Ann Veron