Puddifoot & Tidmarsh

Alice Queenie Puddifoot is a masseuse with a shop in London's Albemarle Street. Lately unkind individuals complained to the London County Council that Miss Puddifoot was no fit person to be in the massage business, demanded that her license be revoked. Miss Puddifoot was vindicated, her license renewed. But most London newspapers covering the hearing went to press with only the racy testimony of the complainants. Alice Puddifoot sued eight of the papers for libel. U. S. editors, reading the results of the trial last week, were bug-eyed with amazement at the manner in which British courts hold the British Press to strict accountability in the handling of late news.

Mr. Justice Swift charged the jury:

"Nobody, I should think . . . can but have the most sincere sympathy with Miss Puddifoot . . . ruined in her business at the very outset of her career. That, however, is beside the question. . . . You have got to decide . . . whether the report each [newspaper] published is fair and accurate. . . . These are all of them great newspapers. . . . The fact that they deal with subjects which are unpleasant in their nature is no ground for saying that they are pandering to the tastes of the more prurient-minded. After all, these newspapers are not written only for the edification of high-minded, refined, and delicately moral people like members of the legal profession. [Laughter], . . ."

The jury awarded Alice Queenie Puddifoot damages against every defendant: Evening Standard -L-300, News of the World -L-300, Star -L-200, Daily Mail -L-200, Daily Herald -L-200, Daily Express -L-150, News Chronicle -L-150.

From his publisher's standpoint Mr. Vivian Tidmarsh was hero of the day. Mr. Tidmarsh, subeditor on the Evening News, showed that his office had learned of Alice Puddifoot's vindication just in time to slip a few lines into the "stop-press" corner of the last edition. The Evening News got off with only one farthing damages.

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