“Dear Miss Corelli,—Thank you very much indeed for your further letter and enclosure, and I hope to be able to arrange for the workers to get things for their children. All the points you mention shall receive careful attention and I am consulting some of my colleagues forthwith. Again thanking you,
“Yours faithfully,
“A. K. Yapp,
“Director of Food Economy.”
This does not look as if I had sought to “rob the poor by hoarding,” as one accuser in the “gutter” press made out later on! When I wrote, explaining the position which had so wrongfully arisen, Sir Arthur wrote regretting it and saying: “I will make all inquiries and am more than sorry you should be worried.”
However, the “case” instigated “from London,” went on remorselessly and I asserted my innocence in vain. A second appeal to Sir Arthur Yapp, strengthened by a personal visit to him from my solicitor who urgently pointed out the absurdity of the “hoarding” charge in my regard, brought the following:—
“National Council, Y.M.C.A.
December 26, 1917.
“Dear Miss Corelli,—Thanks for your letters. I was glad to see your solicitor, but am not sure that I can help you. I will gladly do so if I can. Unfortunately all the people are away for a few days. I will try to get in touch with the Chairman of the Sugar Commission to-morrow, Friday or Saturday. I will write again. I am so sorry you are having this worry. In haste,
“Yours sincerely,
”A. K. Yapp.”
Nevertheless, with all this amiable “Yapp-ing” he did not “get in touch” with the Chairman of the Sugar Commission, then Sir Charles Bathurst, who wrote himself and told me he had never heard a word of the affair till he saw it in the newspapers. On this point my solicitor wrote as follows: “I am glad to hear that you have a letter from Sir Charles Bathurst, expressing sympathy. I cannot, however, overlook the fact that whereas Sir Arthur Yapp had no power apart from Sir Charles to take cognisance of facts which I brought to his notice with a view to stopping an unjustifiable prosecution calculated to do you an injury, Sir Charles Bathurst had ample power and did not exercise it, although approached by Sir Arthur Yapp. I do not think the Food Control Department even troubled to send the case to their counsel, but merely seized the opportunity to accept a statement which was not in conformity with the evidence, was a violation of the highest principles of justice, and a slur upon the summary jurisdiction of the land.”
And so the case went on. Yapp meantime addressed a crowd on Tower Hill and assured them “Marie Corelli’s sugar had been taken from her”—which was a flaring fiction as there was no excess of sugar to take. He failed to mention that the victim he thus pilloried had given far more than the sugar’s worth to the Y.M.C.A., of which he posed as the pious and conscientious Head! But “that’s another story”! He felt perfectly justified, however, in handing over my personal letters to him (marked “Private”) to a Mr. Wise, his secretary, I believe, whom my solicitor found reading them to his lady clerks by way of a little entertainment—and so altogether I rank Sir Arthur Yapp with Shakespeare’s Brutus, and here express my profound acknowledgments.