AN UNEXPECTED RESULT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 11935, 24 March 1914, Page 4

AN UNEXPECTED RESULT.

Journalists are well, aware of the danger of attacking impropriety in fiction, painting, or drama Often the attack is a fine advertisement for the tiling attacked, and an offensive production which might otherwise have remained in semi-obscurity becomes an object of the public's interest. One leading English weekly has solved the difficulty which confronts critics anxious to do their duty, by ignoring books that it considers objectionable. The tendency of criticism to have an effect opposite to that desired by the critic has been rather amusingly illustrated in Sydney. Dr Kelly, the Roman Catholic. Archbishop of Sydney, declared that some of the works exhibited in the National Art Gallery Avere indecent. He was promptly ansAvered by the director of the gallery, Avho, besides contending that there were no pictures in the gallery at which anyone need be ashamed to. look, pointed out that of .".00,000 visitors to the gallery last year, not ono hinted that there was anything objectionable in the art there. An immediate effect of the Archbishop's attack Avas v decided increase in ,tlio attendance. When the Archbishop returned to the attack, and particularly singled out for criticism a certain picture in a certain corner, the attendance at the gallery increased still further, and the attendants noticed that the corner mentioned Avas especially well patronised. When the mail left no other complaints had been made to the authorities. It Avould be unwise at this distance to express an opinion on the controversy, says The Press, but it is worth Avhile drawing the attention of would-be reformers to the effect of the Archbishop 's criticism.