LITERARY TURPITUDE

Having run the gamut of Count Craven's listless love, the United States Immigration officials, and Earl Carroll's bathtub parties, the Countess Cathcart could hardly be expected to desert the newspapers for the home. After a silence of almost two weeks she has cast aside her protective veil and issues forth a novelist, full-grown, from Scandal's forehead.

This sudden manner with which the Countess announces that she has a book for sale provokes a faint smile of suspicion. However, when one has occupied the front page of a nation's newspapers for several consecutive days, one can do wonders, even write novelist in fortnights.

All of which serves to discount the theory that such literary journals as the Saturday Review or the Times Sunday Book Supplement guide the readers of the nation. When "The Women Tempted" has run into numerous editions and has found a place on every virgin's Sex Foot Shelf, the distinguished critics of the country will be forced to realize to their despair that the New York Evening Journal and the Boston Telegram are the true expressions of the nation's taste in light literature.

Unfortunately nothing Mere Man can do will stop the hungry Goddess of Scandal. It is a Woman's game and a Woman's profit. And, indeed, why should Man worry? He can now afford to spend the afternoons at the club, since the children can be brought up on the by-products of Margot's tongue, or the vitality or Edna's system, not to mention the gate receipts of a good case of moral turpitude, Fortune has left the office and the bank, and retired shyly to the boudoir and the bed.