Mirrors of Life

When the British government raised the lid on the newsprint ration last January, newspaper circulations soared, but none of the dailies rocketed to such stratospheric heights as the Sunday papers. The sexy, sensational Sunday Pictorial, weekend sister of Harry Guy Bartholomew's London Daily Mirror (TIME, Nov. 17, 1947), jumped 730,000, biggest gain for any British newspaper. By last week, the combined circulation of Britain's eleven national Sunday papers had hit an astounding 30 million copies a week.

But not everybody was as happy about the whole thing as the Sundays' proprietors and their readers in the United Kingdom (pop. 50,000,000) seemed to be. In the House of Commons recently, Socialist M.P. John Haire rose to deplore the increase of journalistic "speculation, sex, sensationalism and sheer lies," and Dr. John R. Rees, one of Britain's most eminent psychiatrists, stigmatized some of the Sundays, which he did not specify, as "chambers of horrors."

Lord Kemsley's unsexy, unsensational Sunday Times (circ. 521,000) rushed to defend its more wayward and widely read sisters: "Is it not time that those who . . . make such attacks should . . . particularize the journals which they wish to pillory?" It was true, as the Sunday Times said, that not all the Sundays were devoted to rape, robbery and remorse; two (the Sunday Times itself and the Observer) were sober news and feature weeklies, and several others were only mildly sensational. But some of the scandalmongering and crime stories of the biggest British Sundays made even U.S. tabloids seem as staid as high-school annuals.

Deplorable. Loudest and lustiest of all is the fast-growing Sunday Pictorial, edited by 36-year-old Hugh Cudlipp, younger brother of Editor Percy Cudlipp of Labor's

Daily Herald. "The Pic" now in third place with a 4,734,000 circulation, manages to cram its pages with sex, invariably in the guise of deploring pornography and impropriety. Sample: when a schoolmaster and his 10-year-old girl pupils went off into the woods after watching a school sex-instruction film (he got three months in jail), the Pic devoted Page One to stills from the banned movie under the pious headline NOW PARENTS CAN JUDGE FOR THEMSELVES. Last week readers were treated to a leering exclusive, CONFESSIONS OF A FAKE DOCTOR, which the paper printed just to show "the urgent need for [legal] reform."

The Pic has also turned sex into sales with its own Kinsey report on John Bull's private life (headline: 450 VERY FRANK MEN AND WOMEN). Last summer, when cameramen pursued Princess Margaret (see below) into an Italian grotto and peered into her bedroom, the Pic loudly protested this invasion of her privacy. Naturally, it had to run pictures to show how unprincipled the invasion had been.

Athlete's Foot. The second biggest paper, The People, is something like a light lady who has married and tried to settle down. It blends sensationalism with folksiness, makes a try at teaching readers how to cook, dance, cure athlete's foot, play the horses and read the stars.* But 58-year-old Editor Harry Ainsworth, who has raised The People's circulation from 300,000 to 4,958,000 in 24 years, also puts crime and sex stories in their place--generally on Page One. Last week The People's eager readers were being filled in on THE WORST MEN IN THE WORLD (the inmates of Alcatraz) and how HYENAS EAT 90 BABIES.

Card-Playing. Still far out in front in the circulation parade is Britain's (and the world's) biggest newspaper, News of the World (circ. 8,320,000). In one recent issue, News of the World readers were served up such titillating headlines as WOMAN SCREAMED IN BUS QUEUE, CLERK WITH SPLIT MIND IN 4 A.M. HOTEL SCENE; UNCLE AND PARENT TO SAME CHILDREN; MEN THRASHED PIG UNTIL IT DIED. But what really sells the News of the World is not its headlines but its detailed, deadpan reporting of court testimony in all manner of sex and criminal cases. Sample, from last week's report of how BOY AGED 15 ACCUSES A MARRIED WOMAN: "The 15-year-old boy said in evidence that he often visited the house and played cards with [a married couple]. One night in the summer of 1948 he found [the wife] alone. She sat near him on the sofa and improperly assaulted him. The boy continued: 'I visited the house again nearly every evening. Several times the things I have described happened.' "

To critics of the Sundays, 61-year-old Editor Arthur G. Waters of News of the World replies: "We are performing a great public service; we are a mirror of life. Doesn't the simple fact of our great circulation suggest the terrible demand of the average man to know just what his neighbors' next door are doing? [That many] million Englishmen can't be wrong."

* In World War II, The People's Astrologer Lyndoe was so accurate in his forecasts of coming military events that the censors persuaded the editor to drop dates from hot predictions.

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