Brief von Ernest Jones, 20. April 1925, London1

Dear Friends,

The Berlin and Vienna letters have just arrived, but not the Budapest one. My own letter is late in going off because I have just returned from spending a week in Paris. I saw a good deal of Laforgue and Sokolnicka, both of whom made a very good impression. Laforgue is certainly a very intelligent and able man with quite exceptional powers of work. He makes a good and skilful fighter. His personal ambition tends him to undue striving for originality but I should think he is too normal ever to diverge from us along the lines of any neurotic theory. I gave the local group there a short address (in French) which was followed by a lively discussion. Wexberg2, Adler's supporter, who was present, made himself so obnoxious that he will not be invited again. The group is a very mixed one, so that I felt like saying »Jemand ist selten ein Franzose«. Unfortunately a couple of the best men, including Codet3, were still away on their holidays.

The most startling event here in the past month has been the arrest and prosecution of an American charlatan named Homer Lane4, who had been practising »Psa« among Society circles in England for some years. He was ostensibly arrested for some technical offence, about foreigners reporting to the police, but the prosecution indicated that the underlying reasons were his exploitation of psycho-analysis sexually and financially (acting as procurer, etc.). The magistrate condemned him to a month's imprisonment to be followed by deportation, but he has appealed to a higher court which meets only in May. The main interest of the event was the way in which most of the Press seized on the occasion to vent their animus against psycho-analysis. All of them, including the »Times« used