THE EASTBOURNE CHRONICLE

Eastbourne, Sussex, England

15 July 1899

(page 5)

STRAY NOTES.

Among the various suggestions for preventing accidents at Beachy Head the most novel comes from Mr. Aleister Crowley, the well-known authority on mountaineering. His proposal—the only one, he contends, calculated to have the desired effect—is to frighten would-be climbers by the erection of a board containing a list of the awful fatalities that have occurred there. Such a ghastly record, he believes, would take the “devil” out of the most adventuresome. Without gainsaying the probable terrorizing effect of a death list, suitable decorated, of course, with grinning skulls and crossbones, we think a more effective method of restraining the foolhardy, and one less jarring to the feelings of rational non-climbing visitors to the headland, would be to fence off the dangerous portions of the cliff and to prosecute as trespassers persons found ascending or descending. The necessity for protective measures of some sort is increasing with the growing insecurity of the face of the cliff and with the swelling proportions of the annuals pilgrimage to Beachy Head.