January 25 1925
A man found wandering at Sherbourne (Hants), suffering from loss of memory, was on Saturday identified as George Farmer, captain of the Portsmouth RMLI [Royal Marine Light Infantry] football team.
He had been missing from barracks since Monday, and was found at Sherborne on Tuesday, having apparently wandered all the way from Portsmouth. He played with the team in London last Saturday, and the only theory advanced for his loss of memory is that his head may have been affected by heading a heavy ball.
His mind is blank, and he was unable to recognise his football colleague who fetched him on Saturday.
Long before the issue of concussion affecting sportspeople was considered worthy of investigation, footballer and soldier George Farmer wandered a distance of 80 miles, having lost his memory, it being believed that it was caused by heading a heavy football.
Bad “Literature”
A sporadic sort of “campaign” against evil in print has been carried on throughout parts of Ireland during the past 20 years. Those engaged in it develop spasms of activity at irregular periods; while these fits last the campaigners succeed in advertising the publications against which they fulminate; when the fits subside, these publications find their circulations in Ireland materially increased. The latest suggestion is that papers and publications generally of an objectionable character should be banned by law and debarred from entrance to the Irish Free State.
That is a serious proposition; wise lawmakers will give it earnest consideration before taking a step that cannot be re-traced without loss of dignity and credit – to say nothing of the mischief that must result from failure. Who would act as “censor” in respect of the multitudinous “papers” of all kinds that are imported from Great Britain every week and every day? Who would lay down the principles on which the censor – or 500 censors – should act? Would a column held objectionable by one arbiter in one issue of a journal otherwise unimpeachable be made the reason for placing an embargo on the casual offender for all time to come? The suggestion “bristles with difficulties”.
Irish News editorial on the efforts to increase the censorship regulations for literature in the Irish Free State and the dangers and consequences increasing them could have.
