Of course men were not wanting to answer the malevolent insipidities of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, and to note the difference between newspaper articles duly pamphleted and distributed to the disgust of all decency, and the translation of an Arabian classic, limited in issue and intended only for the few select. Nor could they fail to observe that blackballing the Nights and admitting the “revelations” was a desperate straining at the proverbial gnat and swallowing the camel. My readers will hardly thank me for dwelling upon this point yet I cannot refrain from quoting certain of the protests:—
_To the Editor of the_ “PALL MALL GAZETTE.”
Your correspondent “Sigma” has forgotten the considerable number of “students” who will buy Captain Burton’s translation as the only literal one, needing it to help them in what has become necessary to many—a masterly knowledge of Egyptian Arabic. The so-called “Arabian Nights” are about the only written halfway house between the literary Arabic and the colloquial Arabic, both of which they need, and need introductions too. I venture to say that its largest use will be as a grown-up school-book, and that it is not coarser than the classics in which we soak all our boys’ minds at school.
And the _Freethinker’s_ answer (Oct. 25, ’85) to these repeated and malicious assaults is as follows:—
Here is a fine illustration of Mr. Stead’s Pecksniffian peculiarities. Captain Burton, a gentleman and a scholar whose boots Mr. Stead is not fit to black, is again hauled over the coals for the hundredth time, about his new translation of the Arabian Nights, which is so “pornographic” that the price of the first volume has actually risen from a pound to twenty-five shillings. Further down, in the very same column, the _P.M.G._ gloats proudly over the fact that thirty-five shillings have been given for a single copy of its own twopennyworth of smut.
The last characteristic touch which I shall take the trouble to notice is the following gem of September 16, ’87:—
I was talking to an American novelist the other day, and he assured me that the Custom-house authorities on “the other side” seized all copies of Sir Richard Burton’s “Nights” that came into their hands, and retained them as indecent publications. Burned them, I hope he meant, and so, I fear, will all holders of this notorious publication, for prices will advance, and Sir Richard will chuckle to think that indecency is a much better protection than international copyright.