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Memorandum Regarding Bankruptcy Proceedings
[Undated - circa February 1935]
1898-1914 Until July 1914 I was earning from two or three thousand per annum from my books and various activities connected with them. (These figures are only surmised, as I never kept accounts. I always employed others to carry out routine and was uninterested in the result, because congenitally incapable of criticizing them. I am the author of some of the noblest prose and poetry with which the English language has ever been enriched, and I cannot also have the talents of an accountant. All details of finance in the following statement are therefore accidental, fragmentary and approximate).
From the outbreak of the war, barred by phlebitis from active service, I devoted myself to endeavouring to get the United States to enter the war on our side (See 'English Review' Nov 1914 [Appeal to the American Republic]) After the war, the basis of my business had temporarily disappeared owing to the changed psychology of the public.
1920-21 I retired to Sicily in April 1920, took a villa, and invited various friends and adherents as occasion offered.
1922 In 1922 I came to England to make a determined effort to re-establish my business and was immediately successful; obtaining three contracts with William Collins, Publishers of Pall Mall, one of them very extensive and important. I also renewed my connection with the English Review. When I returned to Sicily I was in a state of ill health and very short of ready money until the fulfilment of my contracts. I found that a notorious blackmailer had, on the refusal of William Collins to come to terms with him, published violent attacks on my personal character and on the extremely moral book [The Diary of a Drug Fiend] which Messrs Collins published in 1922.
1923-24 I had invited to join me in Sicily as my private secretary, a very brilliant young man named Loveday [Raoul Loveday] who was himself suffering in health from the results of an accident at Oxford, and from having been entrapped into marriage by a woman of the prostitute class commonly known as Betty May. His health rapidly improved but as a result of an impudence in diet he developed acute infective enteritis, and, in spite of the best medical attention, paralysis of the heart supervened some days later.
This was the signal for renewed outbursts of calumny in the "gutter" press. I have never been attacked by any reputable newspaper. It must be clearly understood that these accusations were all baseless, and many of them impossible in nature. They concerned every crime from procuring and drug peddling to multiple murder and cannibalism.
I was quite unable to understand why anyone should expect me to reply to such nonsense, and my lawyers advised me that the costs of law suits might amount to £5000, of which they wanted £1000 in cash before beginning. Just at this time Mussolini was plotting the murder of Matteotti, and took occasion to expel from Italy, correspondents of English and American newspapers and several other Englishmen of distinction. Whether by his instructions or not, I cannot say, but what purported to be an order from him expelling me from Italy was made. I personally believe that it was a local intrigue. The people of the town to the number of several hundred signatories protested against the order, but without avail. I retired to Tunis, leaving my staff to carry on my work without me.
1925 In 1925 I was summoned by a group of delegates from one of the societies with which I am connected, to a conference in Germany. Thither I repaired. One of my hosts was named Karl Germer who became my personal pupil.
During this whole period financial conditions had been very adverse, as William Collins, despite repeated written promises to support me, refused to reprint my book, or to proceed with the other contracts. These events in Germany notably improved matters, and, in the winter I was able to rent two villas in the fashionable suburb of Tunis, La Marsa.
Here I entertained numerous adherents with a view to re-establishing my work on an international basis. A publishing house was started in Germany and Karl Germer was despatched to America to make connections there. The main difficulty with England still persisted. A complete boycott of my work due to the falsehoods circulated by the "gutter" press, especially John Bull, and also to the sale of the English Review to a company of a totally different character. I removed my headquarters to Paris so as to recover touch with the leaders of thought there and in London.
Phase 2.
During this year one of my agents in London reported to me that a certain Gerald Joseph Yorke of 9 Mansfield Street London W.1. was very anxious to study and co-operate with me. I asked him to visit me which he did on Dec 31st 1926.
1927 Yorke proved to be a brilliant student of my work and I offered him a fortnight's personal training. We accordingly passed this time together as a bathing resort near Marseilles. Discussing the business aspects of the work, Yorke pointed out that I was completely ignorant of all business but that he, being a director of the Mexican Railway, Pontifex Ltd, and allied firms, would make an ideal manager. On my side I pointed out that anyone can manage a nonexistent business, and that the first step must be to overcome the boycott, a matter requiring capital. He suggested an informal arrangement, a kind of 'pool' on what may be called the 'Three Musketeers' principle between himself, myself and Karl Germer. Each of us was to contribute his all to the general purposes. He reckoned Germer's total resources as about £15000; my actual saleable stock in the neighbourhood of £20,000, his own funds at about £5000 and potentialities without assignable limit. He however was natural heir to property greatly exceeding £15000 a year. He himself as the business man on the spot was to work in London, Germer in the United States, while I was to manage continental affairs from Paris.[1]
We employed a man called de Vidal Hunt [Carl de Vidal Hunt] (really Hundt) as a publicity agent and negotiator for the marketing of the big Collins contract. After a month or two Yorke discovered that Hundt was doing no work for his salary and dismissed him. The reply was a blackmailing letter to the effect that unless he was reinstated he would raise trouble. Hundt had apparently some relations with the jackals of corrupt French politicians, and persuaded somebody to refuse to renew the identity cards of myself, secretary and fiancée. These two were actually deported. I left some six weeks later when I had finished my business in Paris.
1928 [should be 1929. Gerald Yorke.] In the early summer of 1928 Yorke informed me that he had been requested by Colonel Carter [Lieutenant Colonel John Carter], then head of the 'Special Branch' to get me to come over to England as the Yard was being pestered beyond bearing by wandering lunatics, usually holding important and responsible positions. The type of request was that the Yard should have me arrested for all the women I had murdered in Paris! They sent me a first class fare and an invitation to dinner, and at the end of the evening it was perfectly clear to Col Carter that the accusations against me were one and all senseless fabrications. A few days later I was approached by one of the partners of a new small publishing firm, the 'Mandrake Press'.
With this firm I concluded a highly profitable contact covering a three year's publishing programme. One of the partners [Edward Goldston] wishing to retire, new people were brought in, and a limited Company formed, Yorke being a director. I insisted on this as a condition of our 'pool' (previously referred to) furnishing the new company with £1500. I had now no further business in London and went to stay with Karl Germer in Germany from time to time.
1929-30 In August 1929 I left Berlin for Lisbon and stayed for some time in Estoril, endeavouring to establish a branch of my work in Portugal. While there I received an alarming letter from Yorke and hastened back via Paris to Berlin to take counsel with Germer. It appeared that the new managing director of the Mandrake Press, Major Thynne [Major Robert Thynne], had removed the whole of the company's capital under Yorke's nose and that of my own secretary [Israel Regardie] whom I had put in as accountant. In fact the company was liquidated and the whole of my contracts became valueless; and worst of all, the carefully calculated publicity which was to dispel the boycott against me was cut short. This, in spite of the fact that my books had been very well subscribed, and on the whole well reviewed. (I may instance a column in the Times Literary Supplement)
Yorke professed to have no further capital available and suggested that I should go to Berlin to take the matter up with Germer. I was at this time much absorbed in my more serious work of curing deep seated psychoses. I was also extremely busy arranging an exhibition of my pictures in Berlin and I took very little interest in the financial side of the business. Germer on the contrary had begun to conceive suspicions that Yorke was double crossing us, and this became constantly more probable as time went on. Yorke was still failing to provide funds from his end, and was even refusing to honour a guarantee for £1000, which he had given to Germer in connection with some advance.
1931-32 Towards the end of 1931 the financial stringency in Germany and the depression in America ended by wiping out Germer financially. He went into retirement in the country and I was forced to turn to Yorke for funds to carry on. Yorke supplied these, and we had several conferences in Berlin, where my work still detained me. In order to continue with the real work of the 'Pool' we decided that a sum of £500 was necessary. But here Yorke's duplicity began to become manifest even to my simplicity. However he urged me in the course of at least half a dozen telephone calls from London to come over for four days, when everything would be put right. I therefore dashed over to England; but on arrival found that he had been lying from the start. I finally demanded to see his accounts and he dumped with my lawyer an enormous mass of totally irrelevant material. A writ was issued to compel him to furnish a proper account and for damages etc. He replied by absconding to Shanghai on Sept 16th 1932. This left me in the greatest straits for current expenditure, and when I came to check over the assets with a view to realising a portion of them, I found that the greater part of the immediately available stock had disappeared. £2000 worth of stock in America became automatically untraceable and has not so far been traced.
Counsel went through the material left by Yorke, and advised us that we had merely to go ahead and sign judgment, but the solicitors, Messrs Forsyte and Kerman and Phillips shrank from the labour of preparing the case.
Phase 3
1932-the present day My investigations confirmed Yorke's statement that our work in 1928 and 1929 had not in any way broken up the boycott against me personally. I determined to take action against the next parties who libelled me. I won two libel actions, but there was no efficient publicity with these, one in fact being settled out of court. I was therefore glad when a friend pointed out to me in a pornographic book "Laughing Torso" by Nina Hamnett, published by Constable and Co. two or three passages which were distinctly objectionable. I wish to make clear these points.
(1) This was the first time on which a reputable firm had come under my notice in this way.
(2) That I should have gladly accepted a widely published apology and nominal damages.
Mr. Kerman [Isidore Kerman] however smelt money, and at a conference of the defendants it was agreed to offer £1000 and costs, which of course was acceptable. But Nina Hamnett on leaving the conference got very drunk, as was her habit. In this state she was picked up by a tout employed by Edmund O'Connor, the tool of William Cooper Hobbs, who served two years imprisonment for his share in the Mr. A case. He persuaded her to defend the action separately. Mr. O'Connor was pitched into the breach at the last moment at the hearing of the injunction to restrain the sale of the book before Mr. Justice du Parcq; while Messrs. Constable's counsel remained apologetic, he snarled defiantly. (The Judge was not pleased) This action, which appeared sheer lunacy as Nina Hamnett had not sufficient money to buy clothes, let alone fight a case in the High Court, became explicable when William Cooper Hobbs approached me with a proposal that he would call off O'Connor if I would split the damages with him. I refused. (He renewed these overtures on hearing the verdict!)
Mr. Kerman, evidently expert at negotiating a settlement, proved no man for a fight. Of all the legal talent arrayed on my behalf no one person understood the elements of the case with the exception of my junior counsel Mr. Frank Lewis, who had conducted day after day a most careful and systematic examination of the facts and documents concerned. His notes and advice were completely ignored and to the pretentious stupidity I attribute the loss of the case.
The pleadings were abominably drawn, as will appear when we come to the Court of Appeal. But no man could foresee the impudence of the perjuries of 'Betty May' or the unscrupulousness of those who suborned her. My leading counsel at the High Court trial exposed her falsehoods so savagely that he supposed her completely discredited, and that it would be mere cruelty on his part to continue. The judge then misdirected the jury and a verdict was returned for the defendants.
(I think it irrelevant to mention what transpired between the High Court and the Court of Appeal, especially as action in the matter is pending) The Court of Appeal was compelled to admit that the judge had not only misdirected the jury (which, they said, did not matter as it did not appear to have affected the result) but that he had failed to direct them at all on the criminal libel. It was therefore incumbent on Mr. Malcom Hilberry K.C. to submit that this libel was no libel at all. The fatal defect in our original pleadings was that we had not pleaded that Black Magic, with the words used in the book, clearly implied a charge of ritual murder. He was consequently able to plead that the paragraph about the mysterious disappearance of a baby was merely gossip about a conjuring trick! The Court upheld this view, and dismissed the appeal.
I am contemplating taking the matter to the House of Lords. I had in the most important matter gained my point. Of all the abominable charges repeatedly made and widely circulated about me, nobody dared to mention even one. But the case was very imperfectly and sometime unfairly reported by various newspapers, and there has certainly been no efficient publicity for my vindication; so that the boycott against me is in as full force as ever.
It may be asked why, in view of my financial position, I did not seriously retrench my expenditure, but I was being almost constantly approached by one party over another with proposals to enter into contracts for sums totalling thousands of pounds, and it is a matter for constant surprise that the boycott has proved so universal. I had every reason for my anticipation that, at any given moment, I should be in a position to discharge all my liabilities.
I hope that this will have explained adequately the circumstances which have led up to the present position; and I wish to emphasise once more that the breakdown of the boycott will render me automatically capable of paying 20/- in the pound.
1—[Note. An incorrect picture. Germer had no money but was engaged to an American [Cora Germer] who had some, the amount at that time unknown to me. I never agreed to contribute my all to the general purposes, and had not £5000 of capital. My first step was to get A.C.'s stock of unsold books in London valued by a Bond Street bookseller (Dulau): the valuation was £200 not £20,000!! I agreed to hold any money raised by us, sent to A.C. by his disciples, or arising from his own Trust fund, and to send him an agreed allowance from this central fund. Gerald Yorke.]
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