This little play is really a religious tract in dramatic form. If our
silly censorship would permit its performance, it might possibly help to
set right-side-up the perverted conscience and re-invigorate the starved
self-respect of our considerable class of loose-lived playgoers whose
point of honor is to deride all official and conventional sermons. As it
is, it only gives me an opportunity of telling the story of the Select
Committee of both Houses of Parliament which sat last year to enquire
into the working of the censorship, against which it was alleged by
myself and others that as its imbecility and mischievousness could not
be fully illustrated within the limits of decorum imposed on the press,
it could only be dealt with by a parliamentary body subject to no such
limits.