Art: Litter

It is the great ambition of the long-legged Earl of Harewood. King George’s son-in-law, that not only the 29.700 Yorkshire acres which he owns but all the rest of Britain’s broad acres shall become again the tidy landscape painter’s paradise that they were in the days of Turner and Morland. To this end he has become President of the Scapa Society for the Prevention of Disfigurement in Town & Country. Fortnight ago the S. S. P. D. T. C. had its 4Oth anniversary. Stroking his graceful grey mustache. Lord Harewood made his annual report. His father-in-law’s ministers had appointed a Select Committee of Sky Writing which decided that aerial advertising should be prohibited in the country and in towns of less than 20.000, permitted elsewhere. Son-in-law Harewood was strongly against any skywriting at all. On the subject of billboards and outdoor advertising. Lord Harewood was optimistic. Five years ago the Scapa Society drew up a code for outdoor advertisers, which was largely being lived up to. “The worst offenders,” said he. ”are not the great billposting concerns, which appreciate that advertising which arouses strong criticism is bad business. . . . The Society has long been gravely concerned by the increasing disfigurement of picturesque country villages and small towns by advertisements of various proprietary articles: tea, cocoa, tobacco, cigarettes, soap, starch, poultry food, dog biscuits and, er— what not, displayed promiscuously on shops and other premises where they are sold. The Society has been endeavoring to find a way of controlling such advertisements without abolishing them, and the Home Office has now sanctioned a new model form of exemption. … Its general effect is to allow a tradesman to announce his business—once, on each front of his premises toward a road and to display advertisements … on a single space on the building of not more than 24 sq. ft. “On the question of litter, there is no doubt that the habits of the public have greatly improved, but they are a long way from perfection. … On the London General omnibuses I have observed that only five percent of the passengers make use of the receptacles provided for used tickets. . . . What we must do is raise the public standard of manners so that people will instinctively be tidy and no one will ever come away from a picnic without clearing up every fragment.”