PARISH MAGAZINE COPYRIGHTED

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22518, 28 September 1938, Page 6

PARISH MAGAZINE COPYRIGHTED

AVOIDANCE OF PRESS PUBLICITY ACTION BY RECTOR Oaox on own oouispoasßXT.) LONDON, September 1. The word "copyright” appears in parenthesis with notes in the September issue of St. James’s parish magazine, Wednesbury, Staffs, the previous issue of which received national press publicity because of allegations, of wife-beating in the town. It was stated at the rectory that the magazine is for sale only among parishioners and that the notes are not for publication in the press. Indignation ran high in Wednesbury following criticisms made by the rector of St. James’s, the Rev. G. I. Soden, in his parish magazine. Among the rector’s allegations were that “Wifebeating is a common pastime; that the general standard of knowledge and intelligence is low; that council houses have been turned into verminous pigsties, and that people wallow in dirt, gamble and drink deeply, pick and steal, lie and slander.” A challenge, to the rector’s statement was issued by. the chairman of the Health Services and the Education Committees, who asserted that if the statements were true, or if they were only partially true, they constituted a condemnation of his own church. Interviewed, Mr Soden said that what he had written was perfectly true, but it was a very difficult thing to prove it. When told at the time that the Town Council had decided to complain to the Bishop of Lichfield about his allegations, he remarked: “That is a thoroughly mean and un-English action, trying to invoke my Bishop against me for exercising my right of free speech. I shall stick to my guns.”