Bishop's Bonfire

In its sombre, churchlike chamber the House of Lords last week considered the serious subject of birth control. A bill, already past its first reading, was before the House to regulate the sale of contraceptives, liberalize birth control instruction. Proponent of the bill was a weighty champion. King George's own physician, Lord Dawson of Penn.

"My Lords!" cried he, "properly carried out in the married state, birth control is not only necessary, but is a part of our social fabric. To oppose it is just to beat the air. We can no longer have the large families of Victorian days!"

Up in rebuttal stood the venerable Primate of all England, the Most Reverend Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury. He bristled:

"Perhaps my Lords are not aware that contraceptives are already sold in slot-machines like cigarets or candy. Garages also sell them as part of the inducement to hiring a motor car -- so I have been informed.

" Backing his superior, the Lord Bishop of London cried out in a voice shaking with emotion: "I tell you, I would like to make a bonfire of these things, and dance around it." But not even the spectacle of the Rt. Rev. Rt. Hon. Arthur Foley Winnington Ingram prancing in his gaiters and apron around a pyre of contraceptives could dissuade the Lords. The bill passed, 46-to-6.

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