In England, thanks chiefly to the censorship, the theatre is not
respected. It is indulged and despised as a department of what is
politely called gaiety. It is therefore not surprising that the majority
of the Committee began by taking its work uppishly and carelessly.
When it discovered that the contemporary drama, licensed by the Lord
Chamberlain, included plays which could be described only behind closed
doors, and in the discomfort which attends discussions of very nasty
subjects between men of widely different ages, it calmly put its own
convenience before its public duty by ruling that there should be no
discussion of particular plays, much as if a committee on temperance
were to rule that drunkenness was not a proper subject of conversation
among gentlemen.