Note 1 — Chapter I

This letter, signed “S,” appeared in Public Opinion on April 3d, 1875. It is a criticism of the methods adopted by Messrs. Moody and Sankey, and an attempt to show that the enormous audiences drawn to the evangelistic services were not proof of their efficacy. Shaw then proceeds to explain the motives which induced many people to attend, predominant among them being “the curiosity excited by the great reputation of the evangelists and the stories, widely circulated, of the summary annihilation by epilepsy and otherwise of sceptics who had openly proclaimed their doubts of Mr. Moody's divine mission.” This letter has been reprinted in Public Opinion, November 8th, 1907.

In his monograph on Shaw (pp. 42-3), Mr. Holbrook Jackson has pointed out that this was not Shaw's first bid for publicity. In the Vaudeville Magazine of September, 1871, there appeared among the Editorial Replies the following: “G. B. Shaw, Torca Cottage, Torca Hill, Dalkey, Co. Dublin, Ireland.—You should have registered your letter; such a combination of wit and satire ought not to have been conveyed at the ordinary rate of postage. As it was, your arguments were so weighty, we had to pay twopence extra for them.”