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The Times Great Letters: A century of notable correspondence
James Owen
The Times has the most famous letters page of any newspaper. This delightful selection of over 300 items of correspondence over the last century shows precisely why.As a forum for debate, playground for opinion-formers, advertising space for decision-makers and noticeboard for eccentrics, nothing rivals it for entertainment value. By turns well-informed, well-intentioned, curious, quirky and bizarre, since 1914 it has taken the temperature of the British way of life and provided a window on the national character.Among those who have written to The Times to have their say are some of the major political and literary figures of the modern era, including Margaret Thatcher, Benito Mussolini, Graham Greene and John Le Carré. There are contributions, too, from Agatha Christie, Alastair Campbell, AA Milne, Yehudi Menuhin, Theresa May and Morrissey.If you want to know why kippers are dyed, who first turned up their trousers, how to make perfect porridge or just how to have a letter printed in The Times, this infinitely witty, diverting and memorable anthology should be, sincerely, yours.






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Ebook first edition 2017

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Copyright in the letters published in this volume belongs to the writers or their heirs or executors. HarperCollins would like to thank all those letter-writers who have given permission for their letters to appear in this volume. Every effort has been made to contact all individuals whose letters are contained within this volume; if anyone has been overlooked, we would be grateful if he or she would contact HarperCollins.

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Ebook Edition © October 2017
ISBN: 9780008280222, version 2017-09-28
Contents
Cover (#u2e9ef393-8325-5ae7-b969-b1069cc268f5)
Title (#u201e6272-ac69-5d4e-af29-68ded6ff338c)
Copyright (#ub97ee06f-65be-5b60-8f43-1254bf16a5e1)
Contents (#uda3c0c07-f24b-5567-ab6e-2adc75c185df)
Introduction (#u12dcd9b8-2eea-53af-b7fa-92df0acf28d8)
Starting Times (#u776459d1-b0b9-51c0-922a-c0f80fe70f0b)
Thundering (1914–19) (#uafa2e30a-8027-5dc2-855f-cea576eff4f7)
New Times and New Standards (1920–29) (#uad05bc86-64e8-5f40-bfa1-0c3737101c73)
Newspaper of Record (1930–39) (#u55c4ac61-b3ba-5f17-891f-134b7d97038c)
The Best of Times, the Worst of Times (1940–49) (#litres_trial_promo)
Changing Times (1950–59) (#litres_trial_promo)
Keeping up with the Times (1960–69) (#litres_trial_promo)
The Top People’s Paper (1970–79) (#litres_trial_promo)
Living in Interesting Times (1980–89) (#litres_trial_promo)
Modern Times (1990–99) (#litres_trial_promo)
From Blair to Brexit (2000–16) (#litres_trial_promo)
End Times (#litres_trial_promo)
Index of Letter Writers (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
INTRODUCTION
Before 1914, there was no Letters Page as such in The Times. The newspaper had, since its founding in 1785, published correspondence to it. Yet in the era when its front page was still reserved for items of more importance than mere news — club announcements, death notices and public appointments — letters had to be fitted in as space allowed rather than gathered together: let alone considered an attraction in their own right.
Although the change did not become fixed for some years, the decision to start grouping letters onto a single page when possible began to alter their nature and function. Until well into the previous century, those published had often been immensely lengthy (and now almost incomprehensible) political polemics.
That Victorian taste for abundance had begun to dwindle by the time of the First World War and the advent of the motor car and the telephone had led to predictions of an imminent end to letter-writing. But while the constraints of the new lay-out often did encourage correspondents to be briefer, its introduction turned the page into the noticeboard of the Establishment.
Rapidly, it took on the character for which it has become renowned, as a forum for debate, as a playground for opinion-formers and as a billboard for decision-makers. From the start, however, such weighty content was leavened by humour and quirkiness. Moreover, with readers making a regular appointment with the page, another of its features became more pronounced: rallies of letters, with each mail bringing a fresh serving of wit and erudition.
Indeed, what is most striking about this selection of letters, across the years, is the sense of community between readers that emanates from them. Of course, what that community was has changed markedly over time. For much of the first half of this volume, it was largely that which treated the page as an extension of their gentlemen’s club. The tone and content accordingly reflects their self-assurance and their preoccupations — cricket features strongly, as do mentions of Eton; and sometimes both together.
Not until well into the post-war years does the mood become more sombre, pondering (if not resolving) the uncertainties of imperial twilight and economic decline. By then, the readership is notably broader, as changes in education, society and at work bear fruit: in the 1970s, more Labour than Conservative MPs took The Times. Nonetheless, it is remarkable how frequently the same topics recur in correspondence across the generations — the failings of the young, what is to be done about schools, how best to make porridge.
For it seems to me that the value of these letters lies not just in the great events which often they record, be it the death of Elvis Presley or the onset of the internet, nor even in the changing attitudes that they mirror, but in the window that they offer on the national character. Unconsciously revelatory they may be, but the fascination of so many of these letters is their insight into what it means at any time to be British. They take the temperature of the body politic, map the A–Z of our way of life.
They are a reminder, too, that the writing of letters (and emails), and not just of books, can be an art form. Here are Margaret Thatcher, Benito Mussolini and Theresa May giving glimpses of what took them to the top. Meanwhile, Spike Milligan, PG Wodehouse and Celia Johnson use comedy to have their say.
There are masters of the craft to be rediscovered here, among them AP Herbert and Peter Fleming. Graham Greene, John Le Carré and Agatha Christie demonstrate why they made their living from their pens, even if a taxi driver puts TS Eliot square about the limits of Bertrand Russell’s intellect. And Arthur Koestler makes the case for a tax on pleasure (with married love to be zero-rated).
If a Hungarian-born intellectual can be moved to write amusingly in his sixth or seventh language to a newspaper, it must be doing something right. At its best, that is to draw its readers into a long, ongoing conversation about the direction of the nation, what shape it is in and which qualities it should exude.
What is important is that dialogue is open to anyone who reads the paper, not just those who are influenced by its readers’ views, or who seek to influence them. Not everyone understands the rules at once, as the first letter hereafter shows (“How to Have a Letter Published”).
But it is hard to think of another group of readers who, wanting to protest a decision by local councillors about an exhibition, would spontaneously adopt the personae of literary characters relevant to their cause (“The Curious Case of Sherlock Holmes”, which can be found at the start of the book). That ability to make your point whilst retaining your sense of humour is perhaps uniquely — and the best of — British. If newspapers can have a soul, it can be found here, on the Letters Page.
Where it might be helpful, I have added brief contexts to some of the letters which follow. Similarly, the capacities in which correspondents write and their addresses have also been included as seems necessary. Notwithstanding the passage of time, the style and usage of language in the letters, and the views expressed in them, remain those of the original.
JAMES OWEN
starting times
How to Have a Letter Published
26 January 1970
Sir, You’re joking. You must be. “Who will be writing to The Times tonight?” is printed on the face of an envelope containing a letter to me from The Times. The letter “assures you that your remarks were read with interest”. But not sufficient interest to warrant publication. I wonder why when one considers the amount of drivel that is to be found in the Letters to the Editor.
Three times in my life I have written a letter to the Editor. Three times he has found my letter interesting, but not sufficiently so to warrant publication.
The first was on the subject of east Germany, on which I have had a book published. Probably I was not considered an expert on east Germany.
The second was a protest, and an invitation to others to do so, against the victimization of Lieutenant-Colonel Emil Zátopek, the Czechoslovak Olympic athlete. Presumably I was not considered an expert, although, in Prague itself, at the height of his career and for seven years, I advised Zátopek on his training. And wrote two books on sport in Czechoslovakia under the communists.
The third, recently, was a reply to Sir Peter Mursell, a member of the Royal Commission on Local Government, on the implications of the Maud Report. Again, I assume, I was not regarded as an authority on the subject, although the Guardian has given a pen picture of my work against Maud spread over four columns and I have been invited to debate Maud with Lord Redcliffe-Maud at University College, Oxford, of which he is Master.
What does one have to do in order to be recognized by the Editor of The Times? Bring about a counter-revolution in communist east Germany? Run faster than Zátopek? Become chairman of a new Royal Commission on Local Government in England?
Yours faithfully,
J. ARMOUR-MILNE
Replied on 28 January 1970
Sir, The answer to Mr. J. Armour-Milne’s question is simple.
Last year I had two letters published in The Times and I’ve been dining out on them ever since. They involved me in an exchange of letters of ever-increasing lunacy with other correspondents. I can bear witness that the prime qualification you need to get letters published in The Times is eccentricity.
Yours faithfully,
SYLVIA MARGOLIS
* * * * * * *

The Curious Case of Sherlock Holmes
28 October 1950
Sir, It is doubtful whether Mr. Sherlock Holmes will have seen the paragraph in The Times to-day recording the singular decision of the councillors of St. Marylebone to oppose the proposal for an exhibition of material of my old friend and mentor for the benefit of visitors to the Festival of Britain. Engrossed as he is in bee-keeping in Sussex, he is unlikely to rally to his own defence, and you will perhaps allow me, as a humble chronicler of some of his cases and as a former resident in the borough, to express indignation at this decision.
There is much housing in the Metropolis but there is but one Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and I venture to assert that visitors from across the Atlantic (who cannot as yet forgotten my old friend’s remarkable work in clearing up the dark mystery of the Valley of Fear and the grotesque affair of the Study in Scarlet) would find such an exhibition of interest. Why the councillors of St. Marylebone, in their anxiety to display their work on the clearing of slums, should deny honour to my old friend I find it hard to understand. Perhaps this is time’s revenge for the exposure by Mr. Sherlock Holmes of the evil machinations of the Norwood Builder. Whatever the reason, I trust that second and better thoughts may prevail, and in the meantime subscribe myself,
Your humble but indignant servant,
JOHN H. WATSON, M.D. late of the Indian Army.
2 November 1950
Sir, To-day I visited Mr. Sherlock Holmes and conveyed to him the welcome news that St. Marylebone will hold an exhibition in his honour during the Festival of Britain. I could see he was deeply moved by this tribute, as also by the correspondence in which your readers have so warmly supported my plea. Several of those letters raise the subject of commemorative material to be placed on exhibition. Alas, but little remains, for a mysterious and disastrous fire at my old friend’s Sussex home some years ago (the details of which are not yet ready to be given to the world) destroyed the greater part of the relics of his cases. St. Marylebone, I fear, will have to manage without his help.
May I trespass a little further on your indulgence to reply to two of your correspondents? Mycroft Holmes is, of course, technically correct in stating I was not in the Indian Army, though I did in fact so describe myself on the battered tin dispatch box which until recently lay in the vaults of Cox’s Bank in Pall Mall. But it was the custom in 1878, when I was wounded at Maiwand, for those in whatever regiment in India they served, to describe themselves as “of the Indian Army,” a point of which Mycroft in his omniscience will be well aware. As for Mrs. Whitney, I am surprised that, in spite of her close friendship, she is apparently unaware that my dear first wife used “James” as a name for him who remains,
Yours faithfully,
JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.
Replied on 2 November 1950
Sir, Long years of retirement have failed to break the professional habit of careful examination of the Personal columns of The Times newspaper and a necessarily hastier perusal of its other contents. Thus I have learned with no little surprise of the proposal to stage an exhibition perpetuating the performances of my old acquaintance, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Surely in this correspondence to-day’s letter from Mrs. Hudson, his worthy landlady, places the abilities of Mr. Holmes in their right perspective. A place of amusement, such as Madame Tussaud’s, is surely the proper setting for a record of Holmes’s amateur achievements. It would be ungenerous of me to deny that on occasion the gifted guesswork of Mr. Holmes has jumped a stage in the final solution of a crime. It may not be inappropriate to remind your readers, however, of the fable of the tortoise and the hare, and the true student of criminology will continue to regard as the only true source the so-called “Black Museum” of that institution on the Victoria Embankment which for so many years I had the honour to serve.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
G. LESTRADE, ex-lnspector, Metropolitan Police.
THUNDERING
1914–19
Mr. Backhouse’s gift to Bodleian
7 January 1914
Sir, I read with interest the illuminating account in your issue of December 2 of the Chinese library presented by me to the Bodleian, and thank the writer for correcting an error into which I had carelessly fallen respecting one of the Sung editions, the “Ku Chin Chi Yao.” My reason for assigning some date prior to 1085 was that a character identical with the tabooed personal name of an Emperor who reigned after that year was not written with the customary omission of a stroke as a mark of respect. This rule was rigidly enforced under the Sungs, as in later dynasties, and its contravention can only have been due to carelessness on the part of the printer, as your article shows conclusively that the earlier date which I had assigned cannot be correct. It appears from a catalogue which I have consulted that the “editio princeps” of this work was published in 1260, the first year of the Ching Ting of the Southern Sung dynasty, and also the year of Kublai’s accession to the northern throne. My belief is that the copy in the Bodleian is the first edition, so that it should be assigned to the Sung and not to the Yuan. Several reproductions of Sung printing which I have seen show the cramped style of printing which your article rightly mentioned as characteristic also of the Yuan period.
In reference to another Sung print in the collection you allude to the light shade of the paper; I do not think that this is exceptional in books of that date. I have before me a Sung edition of the collection known as “Wen Hsuan” from the library of the eminent Viceroy and collector, Tuan Fang, who was murdered by his troops in Szuch’uan during the revolution. This work is mentioned in his catalogue as indisputably Southern Sung, and in this case also the paper is almost white. I may claim some knowledge of the Sung print, “Works of Tu Fu,” now at Cambridge, to which your article also refers, as it was formerly in my collection. Personally I believe it to date from about 1230, but a former Tartar general of Canton, Feng Shan, who was an authority on ancient prints, used to tell me that its date is early Yuan, say about 1290. He denied that the colour of the paper was a conclusive test, especially in view of the skilful “doctoring” of the old Chinese prints.
I am, Sir, &c.,
EDMUND BACKHOUSE
Sir Edmund Backhouse (as he later became) was regarded for much of the 20th century as one of the greatest European scholars of China, where he lived for decades until his death in 1944. His reputation stemmed in part from the inside knowledge of the Imperial court which he supplied to The Times’s correspondent in Peking. This letter dates from the period when the newspaper was starting to group all letters to it onto
a single page and records Backhouse’s donation of eight tons of historic Chinese manuscripts to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Only in 1973 were the provenance of
many of these thrown into doubt when Backhouse’s biographer Hugh Trevor-Roper unmasked him as a liar, fraudster and fantasist who had wildly exaggerated his expertise and claims of influence.
* * * * * * *

The Redress of Crying Shames
28 February 1914
Sir, I am moved to speak out what I and, I am sure, many others are feeling. We are a so-called civilized country: we have a so-called Christian religion: we profess humanity. We have a Parliament of chosen persons, to each of whom we pay £400 a year, so that we have at last some right to say: “Please do our business, and that quickly.” And yet we sit and suffer such barbarities and mean cruelties to go on amongst us as must dry the heart of God. I cite a few only of the abhorrent things done daily, daily left undone; done and left undone, without shadow of doubt, against the conscience and general will of the community:
Sweating of women workers.
Insufficient feeding of children.
Employment of boys on work that to all intents ruins their chances in after-life — as mean a thing as can well be done.
Foul housing of those who have as much right as you and I to the first decencies of life.
Consignment of paupers (that is of those without money or friends) to lunatic asylums on the certificate of one doctor, the certificate of two doctors being essential in the case of a person who has money or friends.
Export of horses worn-out in work for Englishmen — save the mark! Export that for a few pieces of blood-money delivers up old and faithful servants to wretchedness.
Mutilation of horses by docking, so that they suffer, offend the eye, and are defenceless against the attacks of flies that would drive men, so treated, crazy.
Caging of wild things, especially wild song-birds, by those who themselves think liberty the breath of life, the jewel above price.
Slaughter for food of millions of creatures every year by obsolete methods that none but the interested defend.
Importation of the plumes of ruthlessly slain wild birds, mothers with young in the nest, to decorate our gentlewomen.
Such as these — shameful barbarities done to helpless creatures we suffer amongst us year after year. They are admitted to be anathema; in favour of their abolition there would be found at any moment a round majority of unfettered Parliamentary and general opinion. One and all they are removable, and many of them by small expenditure of Parliamentary time, public money, and expert care. Almost any one of them is productive of more suffering to innocent and helpless creatures, human or not, and probably of more secret harm to our spiritual life, more damage to human nature, than for example, the admission or rejection of Tariff Reform, the Disestablishment or preservation of the Welsh Church. I would almost say than the granting or non-granting of Home Rule — questions that sop up ad infinitum the energies, the interest, the time of those we elect and pay to manage our business. And I say it is rotten that, for mere want of Parliamentary interest and time, we cannot have manifest and stinking sores such as these treated and banished once for all from the nation’s body. I say it is rotten that due time and machinery cannot be found to deal with these and other barbarities to man and beast, concerning which, in the main, no real controversy exists. Rotten that their removal should be left to the mercy of the ballot, to private members’ Bills, liable to be obstructed; or to the hampered and inadequate efforts of societies unsupported by legislation.
Rome, I know, is not built in a day. Parliament works hard, it has worked harder during these last years than ever perhaps before — all honour to it for that. It is an august Assembly of which I wish to speak with all respect. But it works without sense of proportion, or sense of humour. Over and over again it turns things already talked into their graves; over and over again listens to the same partisan bickerings, to arguments which everybody knows by heart, to rolling periods which advance nothing but those who utter them. And all the time the fires of live misery that could, most of them, so easily be put out, are raging and the reek thereof is going up.
It is I, of course, who will be mocked at for lack of the senses of proportion and humour in daring to compare the Home Rule Bill with the caging of wild song birds. But if the tale of hours spent on the former since the last new thing was said on both sides be set against the tale of hours not yet spent on the latter, the mocker will yet be mocked.
I am not one of those who believe we can do without party, but I do see and I do say that party measures absorb far too much of the time that our common humanity demands for the redress of crying shames. And if, Sir, laymen see this with grief and anger, how much more poignant must be the feeling of members of Parliament themselves, to whom alone remedy has been entrusted!
Yours truly,
JOHN GALSWORTHY
* * * * * * *

Treating Married Women Fairly
6 April 1914
Sir, I think it may serve a useful purpose to enunciate clearly three inevitable results of compelling professional women to give up their professions on marriage. (1) It prevents admirable women of a certain type of character from marrying at all; (2) it deprives the community of the work and the experience of another type of woman, who does not feel able to sacrifice her private life to her career; (3) it leads other women, of a more perfect balance, who demand the right to be both normal women as well as intelligences, to (a) wilfully and “dishonestly” concealing the fact of their marriage from their employers; or (b) living in union with a man without the legal tie of marriage.
Regarding the last alternative, I may say that it is sure steadily to increase if interference with married women’s work is persisted in. My own experience of three years of marriage, in which I have discovered the innumerable coercions, restrictions, legal injustices, and encroachments on her liberty imposed on a married woman by the community or sections of it, has brought me to the point of being ready to condone in any of my educated women friends a life lived (if in serious and binding union) with a man to whom she is not legally married. Three years ago such a course would have filled me with horror.
Only by treating married women properly, i.e., by leaving them the freedom of choice allowed to all other individuals, can innumerable unexpected evils be avoided.
Yours faithfully,
MARIE C. STOPES
Dr Stopes was at the time seeking to have her marriage annulled. Married Love, the work which made her name, in part by openly advocating that women practise birth control, was published in 1918.
* * * * * * *

NOT A MANLY GAME
6 June 1914
Sir, The sooner it is realized that golf is merely a pleasant recreation and inducement to indolent people to take exercise the better. Golf has none of the essentials of a great game. It destroys rather than builds up character, and tends to selfishness and ill-temper. It calls for none of the essential qualities of a great game, such as pluck, endurance, physical fitness and agility, unselfishness and esprit de corps, or quickness of eye and judgment. Games which develop these qualities are of assistance for the more serious pursuits of life.
Golf is of the greatest value to thousands, and brings health and relief from the cares of business to many, but to contend that a game is great which is readily mastered by every youth who goes into a professional’s shop as assistant (generally a scratch player within a year!) and by the majority of caddies is childish. No one is more grateful to golf for many a pleasant day’s exercise than the writer, or more fully recognizes the difficulties and charm of the game, but there is charm and there are difficulties in (for instance) lawn tennis and croquet. It certainly seems to the writer that no game which does not demand a certain amount of pluck and physical courage from its exponents can be called great, or can be really beneficial to boys or men.
The present tendency is undoubtedly towards the more effeminate and less exacting pastimes, but the day that sees the youth of England given up to lawn tennis and golf in preference to the old manly games (cricket, football, polo, &c.) will be of sad omen for the future of the race.
I am, yours, &c.,
B. J. T. BOSANQUET
Bosanquet was himself a cricketer, for Middlesex and England, and noted as the inventor of the googlie – of which more later (see page (#litres_trial_promo)).
* * * * * * *

The German people and the war
7 August 1914
Sir, May I add my testimony to that of Lady Phillips published in your issue of to-day? I started from Germany at 3 o’clock p.m. on Saturday last, with my wife and sister-in-law, and during the whole of our trying and anxious journey we experienced nothing but the utmost kindness and courtesy from both people and officials.
Perhaps I may add one thing more. It is too late to believe in the bona fides of the German Government; but in that of the German people I still believe. During my short visit I had conversations with many Germans of various classes. All believed that Russia had provoked the war in order to establish the Slav hegemony over the Germans, and that France was an accomplice in the spirit of revanche. All hated the idea of war — the look in their faces haunts me yet — but accepted it with a high courage because they believed it to be necessary for the safety of their country.
The German people, believe me, are better than their Government. We have to fight them, but let us do so in the spirit of gentlemen, giving them full credit for the admirable and amiable qualities to which those who know them best bear loudest witness.
W. ALISON PHILLIPS
Phillips was formerly a foreign correspondent with The Times. War between Britain and Germany had been declared three days earlier.
* * * * * * *

old soldier
5 September 1914
Sir, I have, before the war was declared, offered my services as an old soldier in many regiments and as one who has been in service in South Africa (victory and disaster), to the authorities, but no acknowledgment has ever been received.
I have got over 100 men to recruit willingly in Fife.
I have had my three servants refused as “unfit” to-day — one for chest measurement, a well set up young man of 22; another very naturally, for varicose veins; a third because at some time he injured his knee and does not work well. The latter is a chauffeur, and long ago offered his services for transport service, and is a good driver. All these men are under 25 years of age. If the medical authority are not allowed to enlist such men for various services how can they render service to their country?
In my own position I consider it scandalous that I cannot fill a position in a cavalry regiment instead of a boy of 17 who has seen no service.
Yours faithfully,
ROSSLYN
The Earl of Rosslyn
P.S. — Of course I want to go to the front after a week’s drill.
Lord Rosslyn, the 5th Earl, was then in his mid-forties.
* * * * * * *

Old Socks Wanted
12 December 1914
Sir, Mittens are wanted badly by the troops and they are scarce. A sock only wears out in the foot part, and if this is cut off (thrown away) and a hole made in the other part for the thumb to go through, an excellent mitten can be made without any expense. I am paying unemployed typists to sew them over, but in three months I have exhausted my circle of friends. May I ask your readers to send me all the old (clean) socks they can collect, in order in this way to provide more work and more comforts without cost and without interfering with the living of any other class?
Yours faithfully,
GEORGE PRAGNELL
* * * * * * *

Colonel Cornwallis-West
12 January 1915
Sir, Lieutenant-Colonel George Cornwallis-West, who has been in continuous command since September of one of the battalions of the Royal Naval Division which were present at Antwerp, has been much annoyed and feels justly indignant at persistent rumours which have been going round to the effect that he has been “shot in England as a spy.”
Colonel West desires us to say that he is alive and well, and he will be much obliged if you will accord him the favour of publishing this letter.
We write as Colonel West’s solicitors. He was with us this morning.
We are, yours faithfully,
ROOPER AND WHATELY
Rooper and Whately, Solicitors
Cornwallis-West was primarily known to readers of The Times for his marriages. His first wife was the former Lady Randolph Churchill, thus making him stepfather to Winston Churchill — albeit the two men were the same age. He had recently wed the actress
Mrs Patrick Campbell, who first played Eliza Doolittle on stage.
* * * * * * *

More Leeches needed
28 January 1915
Sir, Our country has been for many months suffering from a serious shortage of leeches. As long ago as last November there were only a few dozen left in London, and they were second-hand.
Whilst General Joffre, General von Kluck, General von Hindenburg, and the Grand Duke Nicholas persist in fighting over some of the best leech-areas in Europe, possibly unwittingly, this shortage will continue, for even in Wordsworth’s time the native supply was diminishing, and since then we have for many years largely depended on importations from France and Central Europe. In November I made some efforts to alleviate the situation by applying to America and Canada, but without success. I then applied to India, and last week, owing to the kindness of Dr. Annandale, Director of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, and to the officers of the P. and O. Company and to Colonel Alcock, M.D., of the London School of Tropical Medicine, I have succeeded in landing a fine consignment of a leech which is used for blood-letting in India. It is true that the leech is not the Hirudo medicinalis of our pharmacopœias, but a different genus and species, Limnatis granulosa. Judging by its size, always a varying quantity in a leech, we may have to readjust our ideas as to a leech’s cubic capacity, yet I believe, from seeing them a day or two ago, they are willing and even anxious to do their duty. They have stood the voyage from Bombay and the changed climatic conditions very satisfactorily, and are in a state of great activity and apparent hunger at 50, Wigmore-street, London, W.
It is true that leeches are not used to anything like the extent they were 80 years ago — Paris alone, about 1830, made use of some 52 millions a year — but still they are used, though in much smaller numbers.
It may be of some consolation to my fellow-countrymen to know that our deficiency in leeches is more than compensated by the appalling shortage of sausage-skins in Middle Europe. With true German thoroughness they are trying to make artificial ones!
I am yours faithfully,
A. E. SHIPLEY
The zoologist and Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, Arthur Shipley, an expert on parasitic worms, was knighted in 1920 for his war work, which included letting the Master’s lodgings be used as a convalescent home for the wounded.
* * * * * * *

Intelligent Passports
17 February 1915
Sir, A little light might be shed, with advantage, upon the high-handed methods of the Passports Department at the Foreign Office. On the form provided for the purpose I described my face as “intelligent.” Instead of finding this characterization entered, I have received a passport on which some official utterly unknown to me, has taken it upon himself to call my face “oval.”
Yours very truly,
BASSETT DIGBY
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Racing in Wartime
5 March 1915
Sir, I am afraid I cannot follow your reasoning with regard to Epsom and Ascot as set forth in your brief leading article to-day. I put aside the remarks about the affair of the Epsom Grand Stand, as to which there has been both misstatement and misapprehension, which I should have thought the matter-of-fact statement of the Stewards of the Jockey Club would have finally cleared away.
But that is a side, and I may add a false, issue. You say that our Allies “cannot understand how Englishmen can go to race meetings when their country is engaged in a life and death struggle.” With all submission I think our Allies understand us better than this. They know that Englishmen do not think it necessary to put up the shutters whenever they are engaged in war. They know that we are paying two millions a day for this war, and do not think that we shall add the sacrifice of our thoroughbred horses, which are so invaluable for the future of our Army. For, make no mistake, if our races are to cease our thoroughbred horses must disappear. No man can afford to keep bloodstock for the mere pleasure of looking at them in the stable. You hope that there will be no attempt to hold meetings at Epsom, and, “above all,” at Ascot this year. Of what nature, may I ask, is the original sin attaching to these meetings? You record races of a very inferior character almost daily in your columns, sometimes in impressive print. Why do you sanction these and select for special reprobation the two noblest exhibitions of the thoroughbred in the world?
But you say our Allies will misunderstand us. There are many, however, of our French allies who will remember that the winner of the Derby was announced in General Orders during the Crimean War.
Why, indeed, should we embark on the unprecedented course which you indicate, and condemn all our historical practice? Once before our country has been “engaged in a life and death struggle,” at least as strenuous and desperate as this; I mean that against the French Revolution and Napoleon. All through that score of bloody years the Epsom and Ascot Meetings were regularly held, nor indeed does it seem to have occurred to our forefathers that it was guilty to witness races while we were at war. I remember asking the late Lord Stradbroke which was the most interesting race that he had ever witnessed for the Ascot Cup. He replied (I am almost sure, though it is outside my argument) that for 1815, which was run on June 8, eight days before Quatre Bras, 10 days before Waterloo, when Napoleon and Wellington were confronting each other to contend for the championship of the world.
I am and desire to remain remote from controversy, but am anxious to remind you of our history and tradition with regard to this question, and to ask you to pause before you condemn not merely Epsom and “above all” Ascot, but also the principles and practice of ancestors not less chivalrous and humane than ourselves.
ROSEBERY
The 5th Earl of Rosebery — prime minister from 1894–95 — won several classic races as an owner, including the Derby twice.
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No Profits from War
14 September 1915
Sir, It is becoming plain to the average observer of events that there is only one thing which can cause us to lose this war, or can force us to conclude an unsatisfactory peace, and that is the suspicion between different classes in the nation. It is not my purpose to discuss the question whether this suspicion is justified; it is enough that it exists, and that is a statement which you, Sir, are under no temptation to deny.
So far as one can see the suspicion rages mainly round two topics, the rise in the price of necessaries and the amount of war profits; but these two are really one, for the rise in prices would lose half its sting, but for the idea that it is caused by the undue profits of middlemen. The real question before the Government is, therefore, that of the abolition of all war profits; till that is done suspicion will inevitably continue.
And what is the obstacle? It is not undue sympathy on the part of the Government with profit-makers; Mr. Lloyd George’s speech at Bristol has made that plain. It is not the fear of protests in the Press; you have, if I am not mistaken, repeatedly supported such a measure. It is most assuredly not the fear of public opinion, which would be overwhelmingly on the side of such legislation. The professional classes have borne their own burdens as best they could, but they have no more sympathy than the working classes with the abnormal profits made out of the country’s need.
It is time, in fact, to ask the plain question, Who does want to make profit out of the crisis? When that question has been answered it will be time for the nation to decide what shall be allowed, but I am much mistaken if the demand will be either loud or clear. When every class has given of its own flesh and blood with such splendid readiness, it is impossible to believe that any will haggle over money. We are told that the Government have already dealt with profits in munition factories, and it is no doubt their intention to deal with other war profits by way of taxation. The purpose of this letter is to implore them to make their actions and their intentions plain beyond the possibility of mistake. Vague assertions do not quiet vague suspicions.
When once a clear principle is laid down, be it abolition or curtailment, the question resolves itself into one of fact, and suspicion will die for lack of food. There can be no objection to the fullest representation of working-class opinion on the committee which is to carry out the principle into action. The present situation of half-hearted promises and forced concessions is both humiliating and demoralizing, and to the average man it seems frankly intolerable that a Government in which we all have good reasons to believe should be unable to give expression to an elementary principle of political morality and should allow us to drift, as we are drifting, into a great and needless danger.
I am, &c.,
C. A. ALINGTON
Headmaster of Shrewsbury School
Cyril Alington subsequently became Head Master of Eton and later Dean of Durham.
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The Voice of a Schoolboy
Rallies the Ranks
14 December 1915
Sir, May I say one word in reply to the letter of a “Public School Master,” which appears in The Times of to-day (11 December). As an old headmaster, I am not likely to underestimate the value of school discipline. But long experience has convinced me that we keep our boys at school too long. And, as to the commissions to boys, Clive sailed to India at the age of 17; Wolfe, “a lanky stripling of 15”, carried the colours of the 12th Regiment of Foot; Wellington was ensign in the 73rd Regiment at the age of 17; Colin Campbell gained his commission in the 9th Regiment of Foot at the age of 16. We keep our boys in leading strings too long.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOSEPH WOOD
The writer had been headmaster of Tonbridge and Harrow schools.
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Body Armour or shields
28 July 1916
Sir, it is a year now since you were good enough to allow me to express some views about body armour in your columns. Since then, so far as I know, nothing has been done, but now we have got so far that the Minister of War admits that something of the kind may some day come along. To me it seems the most important question of any, and I earnestly hope that you will use your influence to keep it before the notice of the authorities.
Upon July 1 several of our divisions were stopped by machine-gun fire. Their losses were exceedingly heavy, but hardly any of them from high explosives. The distance to traverse was only about 250 yards. The problem, therefore, is to render a body of men reasonably immune to bullets fired at that range. The German first-line trenches were thinly held, so that once across the open our infantry would have had no difficulty whatsoever.
Now, Sir, I venture to say that if three intelligent metal-workers were put together in consultation they would in a few days produce a shield which would take the greater part of those men safely across. We have definite facts to go upon. A shield of steel of 7/16 of an inch will stop a point-blank bullet. Far more will it stop one which strikes it obliquely. Suppose such a shield fashioned like that of a Roman soldier, 2ft. broad and 3ft. deep. Admittedly it is heavy—well over 30lb. in weight. What then? The man has not far to go, and he has the whole day before him. A mile in a day is good progress as modern battles go. What does it matter, then, if he carries a heavy shield to cover him?
Suppose that the first line of stormers carried such shields. Their only other armament, besides their helmets, should be a bag of bombs. With these they clear up the machine-guns. The second wave of attack with rifles, and possibly without shields, then comes along, occupies and cleans up the trench, while the heavily armed infantry, after a rest advance upon the next one. Men would, of course, be hit about the legs and arms, and high explosives would claim their victims, but I venture to say that we should not again see British divisions held up by machine-guns and shrapnel. Why can it not be tried at once? Nothing elaborate is needed. Only so many sheets of steel cut to size and furnished with a double thong for arm-grip. Shields are evidently better than body armour, since they can be turned in any direction, or form a screen for a sniper or for a wounded man.
The present private contrivances seem inadequate, and I can well understand that those who could afford to buy them would shrink from using a protection which their comrades did not possess. Yet I have seen letters in which men have declared that they owed their lives to these primitive shields. Let the experiment be made of arming a whole battalion with proper ones—and, above all, let it be done at once. Then at last the attack will be on a level with the defence.
Yours faithfully,
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
The first tanks had been demonstrated to the Army command in great secrecy five months earlier and made their first appearance on the battlefield in September 1916.
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Russell in chains
5 September 1916
Sir, Mr. Bertrand Russell’s view of pre-war diplomacy is not mine, and it is very far from yours; nevertheless, I hope The Times will allow me to protest against the military edict which forbids him to reside in any part of Scotland, in Manchester or Liverpool, or on the greater part of the English coast. Such an edict is obviously aimed at a man who may justly be suspected of communicating with the enemy, or of assisting his cause. Mr. Russell is not only the most distinguished bearer of one of the greatest names in English political history, but he is a man so upright in thought and deed that such action is, in the view of every one who knows him, repugnant to his character. It is a gross libel, and an advertisement to the world that the administration of the Defence of the Realm Regulations is in the hands of men who do not understand their business. Incidentally, their action deprives Mr. Russell, already debarred from entering the United States, of the power of earning his livelihood by arranged lectures on subjects unconnected with the war. The Times is the most active supporter of that war; but its support is intelligent, and it speaks as the mouthpiece of the country’s intelligence as well as of its force. May I therefore appeal to it to use its great influence to discourage the persecution of an Englishman of whose accomplishments and character the nation may well be proud, even in the hour when his conscientious conclusions are not accepted by it?
Yours, &c.,
H. W. MASSINGHAM
The philosopher, a grandson of the Victorian prime minister Earl Russell, was a pacifist. He had been fined £100 in June 1916 and compelled to resign his Cambridge fellowship because of his anti-war speeches.
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popular Representation
30 March 1917
Sir, there seems to be a very general failure to grasp the importance of what is called—so unhappily—Proportional Representation in the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference. It is the only rational, honest, and efficient electoral method. It is, however, in danger of being thrust on one side as a mere fad of the intellectuals. It is regarded by many ill-informed people as something difficult, “high-browed,” troublesome, and of no practical value, much as science and mathematics were so regarded by the “practical” rule-of-thumb industrialists of the past. There are all too many mean interests in machine politics threatened by this reform, which are eager to seize upon this ignorant mistrust and use to delay or burke1 (#ulink_b80f5884-43ff-568e-a459-ee52cabaea8b) the political cleaning-up that Proportional Representation would involve. Will you permit me to state, as compactly and clearly as I can, the real case for this urgently-needed reform—a reform which alone can make Parliamentary government anything better than a caricature of the national thought and a mockery of the national will?
The essential point to grasp is that Proportional Representation is not a novel scheme, but a carefully worked-out remedy for universally recognized ills. An election is not the simple matter it appears to be at the first blush. Methods of voting can be manipulated in various ways, and nearly every method has its own liability to falsification. Take the commonest, simplest case—the case that is the perplexity of every clear-thinking voter under British or American conditions: the case of a constituency in which every elector has one vote, and which returns one representative to Parliament. The naive theory on which we go is that all the possible candidates are put up, that each voter votes for the one he likes best, and that the best man wins. The bitter experience is that hardly ever are there more than two candidates, and still more rarely is either of these the best man possible.
Suppose, for example, the constituency is mainly Conservative. A little group of pot-house politicians, wire-pullers, busy-bodies, local journalists, and small lawyers working for various monetary interests, have “captured” the Conservative organization. For reasons that do not appear they put up an unknown Mr. Goldbug as the official Conservative candidate. He professes generally Conservative view of things, but few people are sure of him and few people trust him. Against him the weaker (and therefore still more venal) Liberal organization puts up a Mr. Kentshire (former Wurstberg) to represent the broader thought and finer generosities of the English mind. A number of Conservative gentlemen, generally too busy about their honest businesses to attend the party “smokers” and the party cave, realize suddenly that they want Goldbug hardly more than they want Wurstberg. They put up their long-admired, trusted, and able friend Mr. Sanity as an Independent Conservative. Every one knows the trouble that follows. Mr. Sanity is “going to split the party vote.” The hesitating voter is told, with considerable truth, that a vote given for Mr. Sanity is a vote given for Wurstberg. At any price we do not want Wurstberg. So at the eleventh hour Mr. Sanity is induced to withdraw, and Mr. Goldbug goes into parliament to misrepresent us. That in its simplest form is the dilemma of democracy. The problem that has confronted modern democracy since its beginning has not been the representation of organized minorities, but the protection of the unorganized masses of busily occupied, fairly intelligent men from the tricks of specialists who work the party machines. We know Mr. Sanity, we want Mr. Sanity, but we are too busy to watch the incessant intrigues to oust him in favour of the obscurely influential people, politically docile, who are favoured by the organization. We want an organizer-proof method of voting. It is in answer to this demand, as the outcome of a most careful examination of the ways in which voting may be protected from the exploitation of those who work elections, that the method of Proportional Representation with a single transferable vote has been evolved. It is organizer-proof. It defies the caucus.
If you do not like Mr. Goldbug you can put up and vote for Mr. Sanity, giving Mr. Goldbug your second choice, in the most perfect confidence that in any case your vote cannot help to return Mr. Wurstberg.
There is the cardinal fact in the discussion of this matter. Let the reader grasp that, and he has the key to the significance of this question. With Proportional Representation with a single transferable vote (this specification is necessary because there are also inferior imitations of various election-riggers figuring as proportional representation) it is impossible to prevent the effective candidature of independent men of repute beside the official candidates. Without it the next Parliament, the Parliament that will draw the broad lines of the Empire’s destinies for many years, will be just the familiar gathering of old Parliamentary hands and commonplace party hacks. It will be a Parliament gravitating fatally from the very first towards the old party dualism, and all the falsity and futility through which we drifted in the years before the war. Proportional Representation is the door for the outside man; the Bill that establishes it will be the charter to enfranchise the non-party Briton. Great masses of people to-day are utterly disgusted with “party” and an anger gathers against the “party politician” as such that he can scarcely suspect. To close that door now that it has been opened ever so slightly, and to attempt the task of Imperial Reconstruction with a sham representative Parliament on the old lines, with large masses of thwarted energy and much practical ability and critical power locked out, may be a more dangerous and disastrous game than those who are playing it seem to realize at the present time.
I am, &c.,
H. G. WELLS
1 (#ulink_a54d56f9-9c26-5d42-a198-80f456b712fa): meaning “to murder by smothering” and derived from the crimes of the early 19th-century Edinburgh “body-snatchers” Burke and Hare.
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Votes for WomEn
26 May 1917
Sir, Mrs. Humphry Ward disputes the authority of the present House of Commons to deal with the question of Women’s Suffrage. She seems to have forgotten that at the time of the last General Election the subject was already prominently before the country: the majority of members were more or less definitely pledged to the women of their constituencies to support it; and Mr. Asquith had given a definite assurance that if his party returned to power the matter should be dealt with exactly as it is proposed to deal with it in the present Bill — by a free vote of the House of Commons.
Mrs. Ward prophesies that the age limit of 30 for women voters will not be long maintained. She says nothing of the much more important barrier against complete equality which the Bill proposes to set up; by basing the men’s vote on residence, the women’s on occupation. The effect of this and the age limit together will be that men voters will be in an overwhelming majority in every constituency in the country. If, therefore, as women hope and believe will be the case, the franchise should be further extended and eventually placed on a basis of complete equality, it can only be because men are willing for it, having become convinced by experience of its actual working that the effect will be beneficial and not harmful.
She says, also, nothing at all of the argument which, perhaps more than any other, has moved many of the most weighty and inveterate opponents of former years to give the Bill their active support. In what sort of position will Parliament be placed, when the time comes at the end of the war to redeem the pledges it has given to trade unionists, if women are still outside the pale of the franchise? Legislation will be necessary, involving probably, as Mr. Asquith has pointed out “large displacements of female labour.” Will it be to the credit or dignity of Parliament that it should be open to the charge of bartering away the interests of non-voters in order that it may protect those of its constituents?
The chief argument, however, of Mrs. Ward’s letter is that the physical sufferings and sacrifices of women in the present war are not comparable with those of men. This is undeniable. Women have not based their claims to the vote on their sufferings or their services. They have never asked for it as a reward for doing their obvious duty to the country in its time of peril. But the vote, after all, is not a sort of D.S.O. It is merely the symbol of the responsibilities of ordinary citizenship, which requires every one to serve the country according to the measures of his or her opportunity, and to make sacrifices for it, if the call for that comes. Is physical suffering, physical sacrifice, the only kind that counts?
I saw recently a letter from a young wife whose husband had just fallen in the trenches. She wrote — “After all, we have nothing to regret. If it were all to come over again and we knew what would happen, he would go just as cheerily as before, and God knows I would not hold him back.”
There spoke the authentic voice of the women of this country, women who have in their blood and their bones the traditions of an Imperial race. In time of peace they may have been bemused by the false doctrine taught by Mrs. Ward and her school, that Imperial and national questions are matters for men, not women. In time of war instinct reasserts itself. They feel as patriots and as citizens, and their citizenship so manifests itself that it compels recognition in the traditional form for which women have asked so long by granting of the Parliamentary vote.
Yours faithfully,
ELEANOR F. RATHBONE
Eleanor Rathbone was a leading campaigner for women’s rights and social reform, including the introduction of child benefit. She became an MP in 1929, 11 years after women (at first aged 30 and above) were given the right to vote, and to be elected to Parliament.
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An Act of Wilful Defiance
31 July 1917
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them and that had this been done the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.
I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.
On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practised upon them; also I believe it may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share and which they have not enough imagination to realise.
LT. SIEGFRIED SASSOON
The poet’s celebrated letter of protest was sent originally to the Bradford Pioneer newspaper and republished four days later in The Times, having been read out in the House of Commons. Sassoon, who had won the Military Cross in France, had been on convalescent leave after being wounded. He wrote the letter after deciding to refuse to return to the trenches. His friend and fellow war poet Robert Graves persuaded the authorities that Sassoon was mentally ill and therefore unfit to be court-martialled. He was treated instead for shell shock at Craiglockhart Hospital, Edinburgh, where he met and encouraged Wilfred Owen in his writing.
* * * * * * *

Poppies
17 September 1917
Sir, The subjoined letter has been received by the mother of a young officer in the Household Battalion, and was written from the fighting line in Flanders. It pleasantly varies the story of devastation daily transmitted from the front, and incidentally reveals the sort of young fellow who, in various degrees of rank, is captaining our gallant Armies. This one, impatiently awaiting the birthday that marked the minimum age for military service, went from Eton straight to a training camp, and in due course had his heart’s desire by obtaining a commission. He followed close in the footsteps of an elder brother, also an Etonian, killed in his first month’s fighting.
“In England there seems to be a general belief that nothing but every imaginable hardship and horror is connected with the letters B.E.F., and, looking at these three letters, people see only bully beef, dug-outs, shell holes, mud, and such like as the eternal routine of life. True enough, these conditions do prevail very often, but in between whiles they are somewhat mitigated by most unexpected ‘corners.’ The other day we took over from a well-known Scottish regiment, whose reputation for making themselves comfortable was well known throughout the division, and when I went to examine my future abode I found everything up to the standard which I had anticipated. Standing on an oak table in the middle of the dug-out was a shell-case filled with flowers, and these not ordinary blossoms, but Madonna lilies, mignonette, and roses. This vase, if I may so term the receptacle, overshadowed all else and by its presence changed the whole atmosphere, the perfume reminding me of home, and what greater joy or luxury is there for any of us out here than such a memory?
“After having duly appreciated this most unexpected corner I inquired where the flowers had been gathered, and was told they had come from the utterly ruined village of Fampoux close by. At once I set out to explore and verify this information. Sure enough, between piles of bricks, shell holes, dirt, and every sort of débris, suddenly a rose in full bloom would smile at me, and a lily would waft its delicious scent and seem to say how it had defied the destroyer and all his frightfulness. In each corner where I saw a blossoming flower or even a ripening fruit, I seemed to realize a scene belonging to this unhappy village in peaceful days. Imagination might well lose her way in the paths of chivalry and romance perhaps quite unknown to the inhabitants of Fampoux. I meandered on through the village until I struck a trench leading up to the front line; this
I followed for a while until quite suddenly I was confronted by a brilliancy which seemed to me one of the most perfect bits of colour I have ever seen. Amongst innumerable shell holes there was a small patch of ground absolutely carpeted with buttercups, over which blazed bright, red poppies intermixed with the bluest of cornflowers. Here was a really glorious corner, and how quickly came memories of home! No one, however hardened by the horrors of war, could pass that spot without a smile or a happy thought. Perhaps it is the contrast of the perfection of these corners with the sordidness of all around that makes them of such inestimable value. Some such corners exist throughout France, even in the front line trenches. It may not be flowers, it may be only the corner of a field or barn; it may be some spoken word or a chance meeting. No matter what it is if it brings back a happy memory or reminds one of home. It is like a jewel in a crown of thorns giving promise of another crown and of days to come wherein, under other circumstances, we may be more worthy of the wearing.”
Yours faithfully,
HENRY LUCY
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On the Eton Word “Rouge”
13 October 1917
Sir, I was once, about 30 years ago, discussing the Eton word “rouge” and the verb “to rouge” among some English friends at Florence, one of whom was the Hon. Alethea Lawley, sister of Lord Wenlock, of Escrick, in East Yorkshire. (NB — She has been for several years married to a Venetian, Signor Wiel, formerly Librarian of the Biblioteca Marciana.) Miss Lawley exclaimed: “Oh, but ‘to rouge’ is quite a common word in our part of Yorkshire, meaning ‘to push one’s way through anything’, and I have often, when two people are quarrelling, heard one of them say, ‘Now don’t ye come a-rouging against me!’” even as at Eton we might have said: “There against was an awful crowd, but I soon rouged my way through it!” Whenever I see a doubtful East Yorkshire word, I always turn to Vigfussen’s Icelandic Dictionary, wherein I have occasionally found the solution of some difficulties both in Norwegian as well as in East Yorkshire provincialisms. I find in Vigfussen, s.v.: Rydja (more anciently hrjóda) — rydja sér til rúms = “to make oneself room”; again, rydja sér til rikis = “to clear the way to a kingdom, i.e., to conquer it”; and III, “to clear one’s way, to make great havoc — to throng, to crowd.” I never can ignore the possible Scandinavian origin of any word, if it be in use in the east of England.
To give another instance. On one occasion I was reading in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, where that rascal is relating a lying tale to his foolish old mother of how he sprang on to the back of a wounded buck and galloped along the Gendin Edge, when suddenly
“paa en raadlös braabraet plet
for ivrejret rype-steggan
flaksed, kaglende, forskraemt
fra den knart, hvor han sad gemt
klods for bukkens fod paa eggen.”
“Steggan” did not appear in any Norwegian dictionary that I possessed at that time, though it is given in Iver Aasen’s Dictionary of Provincial Dialects, but I bethought me of Vigfussen, and I found “Steggr m. Steggi, a.m. (properly a mounter); in Yorkshire a steg is a gander, from stiga (to mount); a he bird, Andar Steggi a male duck,” &c. Therefore the lines translate:
“(All at once — at a desperate break-neck spot)
Rose a great cock ptarmigan,
Flapping, cackling, terrified,
From the crack where he lay hidden
(at the buck’s feet on the Edge).”
Had I not known from Miss Lawley (30 years ago) that the word “rouge” is in common use round Escrick, I might not have thought more about it; but as it is, I cannot agree that it is the same in sound and meaning as “scrooge” (pronounced scroodge) whereas “rouge” is pronounced exactly like the French equivalent of “red”.
As it may possibly interest some Old Etonians who know Scandinavia, I venture to send you this for what it may be worth.
I remain yours faithfully,
WILLIAM WARREN VERNON
A letter which gives some indication, perhaps, of the presumed readership of the newspaper and their interests in 1917. A rouge is a scoring play in Eton’s Field Game, an ancestor of soccer. Some scholars have seen a link between the attritional nature of it and Eton’s other unique sport the Wall Game, the preponderance of Etonian generals in the First World War and the strategy of grim slogging used for much of the conflict.
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Unmarried Mother
25 February 1918
Sir, Mr Galsworthy, in his article in to-day’s Times on “The Nation’s Young Lives,” strongly advocates the adoption of widows’ or mothers’ pensions, and the proper protection and care of unmarried girl mothers and their illegitimate children. His words are opportune. No amount of Welfare Centres can do anything radical to help the children of widows or those born out of wedlock, until the State has awakened to its grave responsibility for their welfare.
I have, within the last two days, been present at a meeting of a committee of women Poor Law Guardians in one of our great provincial cities. They were engaged, no doubt unconsciously, in a game which, for want of a better name, I must call girl-baiting. I saw a young expectant mother cruelly handled, and tortured with bitter words and threats; an ordeal which she will have had to endure at the hands of four different sets of officials by the time her baby is three weeks old. These guardians told her, in my presence, that they hoped she would suffer severely for her wrong-doing, that they considered that her own mother, who had treated her kindly, had been too lenient, and that her sin was so great that she ought to be ashamed to be a cost to self-respecting ratepayers.
They added that the man who was responsible for her condition was very good to have acknowledged his paternity, but expressed the belief, nay, rather the hope, that he would take an early opportunity of getting out of his obligation. Meanwhile, a pale, trembling girl, within a month of her confinement, stood, like a hunted animal, in the presence of such judges.
We pray constantly in our churches for “all women labouring of child, sick persons, and young children, the fatherless, the widows, and all that are desolate and oppressed,” and yet we continue this oppression of the desolate.
Yours faithfully,
DOROTHEA IRVING
* * * * * * *

air sewage
1 November 1918
Sir, Few of us can do more than pass a very short period of the day in the open air. In a country in which a large proportion of the inhabitants spend most of their lives in industrial occupations, it is wiser to teach them the importance of introducing fresh air into their houses than to urge them to the impossible duty of spending much of their time out of doors.
If we devote, on average, eight hours to sleep, then a third at least of our 24-hour day is spent indoors, and each individual who reaches 60 years of life will have passed no less than 20 years of his existence in the one and only room where he is likely to be sole arbiter of the ventilation. Unless there are exceptional conditions, the windows of every sleeping room should be wide open all night and every night. The blinds should be drawn up, otherwise, from their valve-like action, they will only permit intermittent and uncertain ingress of fresh air, while the only egress for devitalized air is by the inadequate route of the chimney. The hours of night should also be employed for regularly and continuously flushing all day-rooms, where sewage air is manufactured in such quantities that it is never adequately scavenged during working hours. I know of crowded offices where the ventilation is imperfect through the day, and where the windows are all religiously closed up every night, so that the next morning the workers start by breathing more or less sewage air. The windows of many workrooms, hotels, schools, banks, churches and clubs are regularly “shut up for the night”. It has been shown that the sense of fatigue is more the consequence of breathing devitalized and stagnant air than of any other single factor. There is no harm in a room or railway carriage being warmed, if the air is regularly changed as it is used up. Scavenging our air sewage ensures a supply of fresh air. It is our chief safeguard against the onset or severity of influenza. The possibility of “a draught” — still a bogy to many — is best avoided by remembering that doors should be kept closed and windows kept open.
In 1867 Ruskin wrote: “A wholesome taste for cleanliness and fresh air is one of the final attainments of humanity.” Let us hope that this attainment may be advanced by the lessons of science applied in the present epidemic.
ST. CLAIR THOMSON
The letter was written during the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak. An estimated 20 million to 50 million people died worldwide.
* * * * * * *

doing your bit
24 June 1919
Sir, It is now a truism to say that in August 1914, the nation was face to face with the greatest crisis in her history. She was saved by the free will offerings of her people. The best of her men rushed to the colours; the best of her women left their homes to spend and be spent; the best of her older men worked as they had never worked before, to a common end, and with a sense of unity and fellowship as new as it was exhilarating. It may be that in four and half years the ideals of many became dim, but the spiritual impetus of those early days carried the country through to the end.
To-day on the eve of peace, we are faced with another crisis, less obvious but none the less searching. The whole country is exhausted. By natural reaction, not unlike that which led to the excesses of the Restoration after the reign of the Puritans, all classes are in danger of being submerged on a wave of extravagance and materialism. It is so easy to live on borrowed money; so difficult to realise that you are doing so.
It is so easy to play; so hard to learn that you cannot play for long without work. A fool’s paradise is only the ante-room to a fool’s hell.
How can a nation be made to understand the gravity of the financial situation; that love of country is better than love of money?
This can only be done by example and the wealthy classes have to-day an opportunity of service which can never recur.
They know the danger of the present debt; they know the weight of it in the years to come. They know the practical difficulties of a universal statutory capital levy. Let them impose upon themselves, each as he is able, a voluntary levy. It should be possible to pay to the Exchequer within twelve months such a sum as would save the tax payer 50 millions a year.
I have been considering this matter for nearly two years, but my mind moves slowly; I dislike publicity, and I had hoped that somebody else might lead the way. I have made as accurate an estimate as I am able of the value of my own estate, and have arrived at a total of about £580,000. I have decided to realize 20% of that amount or say £120,000 which will purchase £150,000 of the new War Loan, and present it to the Government for cancellation.
I give this portion of my estate as a thank-offering in the firm conviction that never again shall we have such a chance of giving our country that form of help which is so vital at the present time.
Yours, etc.,
F.S.T.
The writer refers to ‘the eve of peace’ as the letter was written a few days before the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919.
The initials F.S.T. stood for Financial Secretary to the Treasury — Stanley Baldwin, who would become prime minister for the first time in 1923. His net worth was equivalent to about £50 million now. The scheme he proposed does not appear to have caught on.
* * * * * * *

Here’s how
15 July 1919
Sir, Will you permit an elderly man, who is not a politician nor a public character, but merely an individual among millions of honest, sober persons whose liberty is attacked by a moral tyranny, to state an opinion with regard to the crusade which is being started against moderate drinkers?
It is not needed even in the cause of morality. That drunkenness has not entirely ceased is obvious, but that it is rapidly declining, from the natural action of civilization, is equally obvious. When I was a child, even in the country village where I was brought up, excess in drinking was patent in every class of society. Now, in my very wide circle of various acquaintances, I do not know of one single man or woman who is ever seen “under the influence of liquor”. Why not leave the process of moderation, so marked within 60 years, to pursue its normal course?
It is untrue to say that a limited and reasonable use of alcohol is injurious to mind, or body, or morality. My father, whose life was one of intense intellectual application, and who died, from the result of an accident, in his 79th year, was the most rigidly conscientious evangelical I have ever known.
He would have been astonished to learn that his claret and water at his midday meal, and his glass of Constantia when he want to bed, were either sinful in themselves or provocative to sin in others. There is no blessing upon those who invent offences for pleasure of giving pain and who lay burdens wantonly on the liberty of others. We have seen attempts by the fantastically righteous to condemn those who eat meat, who go to see plays, those who take walks on Sundays. The campaign against the sober use of wine and beer is on a footing with these efforts, and should be treated as they have been. Already tobacco is being forbidden to the clergy!
The fact that Americans are advertised as organizing and leading the campaign should be regarded with alarm. It must, I think, be odious to all right-thinking Americans in America. We do not express an opinion, much less do we organize a propaganda against “dryness” in the United States. The conditions of that country differ extremely from our own. It is not for us to interfere in their domestic business. If Englishmen went round America urging Americans to defy their own laws and revolt against their national customs, we should be very properly indignant. Let crusading Americans be taught the same reticence. It was never more important than it is now for Great Britain and the United States to act in harmony, and to respect each the habits and prejudices of the other.
These considerations may be commonplace; I hope they are. But many people seem afraid of saying in public what they are unanimously saying in private. The propagandist teetotaler is active and unscrupulous. He does not hesitate to bring forward evidence, or to attach moral opprobrium to his opponents. He fights with all weapons, whether they are clean or no. We must openly resist, without fear of consequences, what those of us who share my view judge to be cruel and ignorant fanaticism of these apostles. We should offer no apology for insisting on retaining our liberty.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
EDMUND GOSSE
The next year, the sale of alcohol was banned in the United States: Prohibition.
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The Future of War
6 November 1919
Sir, By land and sea the approaching prodigious aircraft development knocks out the present Fleet, makes invasion impracticable, cancels our country being an island, and transforms the atmosphere into the battle-ground of the future.
I say to the Prime Minister there is only one thing to do to the ostriches who are spending these vast millions (“which no man can number”) on what is as useful for the next war as bows and arrows! — “Sack the lot.”
Yours,
FISHER
Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher
Postscript.—As the locusts swarmed over Egypt so will the aircraft swarm in the heavens, carrying (some of them) inconceivable cargoes of men and bombs, some fast, some slow. Some will act like battle cruisers, others as destroyers. All cheap and (this is the gist of it) requiring only a few men as the crew.
No one’s imagination can as yet depict it all. If I essayed it now I should be called a lunatic. I gently forecast it in January, 1915, and more vividly on July 11, 1918. We have the star guiding us, if only we will follow it.
Time and the Ocean and some fostering star
In high cabal — have made us what we are!
On Friday last the presiding genius at the “Marine Engineers” said, “The day of oil fuel and the oil engine had arrived.” In 1885 I was called an “oil maniac.” — Nunc Dimittis
The former First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher was a prolific and often percipient correspondent to The Times on naval matters, and blessed with an inimitable style of writing. He died in 1920, before much of his vision of future warfare was vindicated.
NEW TIMES AND
NEW STANDARDS
1920–29
To-day’s young men
3 August 1921
Sir, May I, as a middle-aged spectator, write a few words in your columns to call attention to a curious change in the younger generation of men now, or lately, in residence at the universities, and of ages from 20 to 25?
In many essentials they are the same young men as those of 20 years ago. They are generous and loyal; they are gentle and kind hearted; they are full of spirit and pluck. But there is one great difference. More than ever before in the history of youth do they defy discipline and worship independence. More than ever do they brush aside experience and do exactly as they please.
The writer’s observations are based chiefly on recent visits to the universities, on watching cricket matches, and on meeting the younger men in private houses and at tennis and golf.
Many of them, when they are talking to other persons, including people older than themselves, never take their pipes out of their mouths. When asked to luncheon with hostesses in London many of them appear in under-graduate clothes and flannel collars. When they are in London they never dress for dinner except in case of absolute necessity. They often associate with very odd friends, and with the female companions of these odd friends. At the Eton and Harrow match the writer saw in the pavilion a group of young men who were, for any other occasion, rather nicely dressed. They wore blue serge suits, summer shirts and Zingari1 (#ulink_31e87766-5130-5355-8d98-05fb9b6621de) straw hats. But had they not forgotten that the 1,200 boys who were present were wearing, compulsorily, the kit which for generations had been honoured and welcomed in London as one of the most charming sights of the ceremonial year, and that the great majority of grown-up people who came to the match were showing their respect for the boys by donning the same kind of dress?
The last point I wish to mention is that young men are showing an increasing toleration and fondness for lawn tennis. Breaking away from the general opinion of the masters of our public schools, and from the athletic traditions of many decades of university life, a number of men who might have been fine cricketers devote themselves entirely to “pat-ball,” and while Australia triumphs on the cricket field the youth of England wanders from county to county and from tournament to tournament in pursuit of the trophies and tea parties of this effeminate game.
If an older friend ever dares to point out any of these things to them in a friendly and bantering way, the answer is always the same:—“You are the most dreadful snob we ever met. We intend to do exactly as we like.”
I leave the issue there. It may be that it is the substance, and not the form, which matters. But for those who value form the question must arise. If this is the form of the beginning of their lives, how will they train their own offspring? How will they save themselves from being judged as
Nos nequiores mox daturos
Progeniem vitiosiorem? 2 (#ulink_3fd2ac7c-b4b1-596a-8e03-f88e63f1a096)
I am, &c.,
OLD ETONIAN
1 (#ulink_dc9fe030-e283-5ff6-a956-ac391355c6ef) I Zingari (“gypsies” in Italian) is the name of a cricket club that then drew its members from old boys of the leading public schools.
2 (#ulink_1d6e3079-efca-5947-97d4-9de910b1cd40) For the benefit of those who did not study Horace at Eton, the Latin tag translates roughly as “We, who are worse than our parents, will soon have children who are even more unbearable.”
Replied on 4 August 1921
Sir, May I, as a young man (and, incidentally, an Old Wykehamist), make some reply to the accusations of “Old Etonian”? It would be strange indeed if “a curious change” was not to be observed in the younger generation of to-day. Without making the too common claim that we “won the war,” we may at least remind your correspondent that for three or four years we were subject to such a discipline as he and his like have never known, and never will know. We spent a large, an incredibly large, proportion of that time absorbing the notions of “middle aged men” concerning matters of form, matters of dress and “smartness” and sartorial respect. We were told that these things were more than matters of form; they were essential to efficiency. But we saw that many an uncouth miners’ battalion was as valiant and efficient in the field as Guards themselves; we saw that those senior officers who were most busy about ritual details of “smartness” were often the most stupid, pig-headed, and inhuman; we saw “experience” fussing about salutes and forgetting about the men’s food; and it is not surprising if we have learned to set our own value on matters of form.
Even so, no young man that I have met claims to do “exactly as he pleases” in this respect, though we may have found new standards. It is possible, for example, that the young men in “blue serge suits, &c.” regarded their costume as more beautiful and becoming than the funereal top-hattery of the rest of Lord’s. But surely, we may be allowed to play what games we like? “Old Etonian” regards lawn tennis as a young woman’s game; I regard cricket as an old woman’s game. Lethargic, slow, it seems to me to consume a period of time grossly disproportionate to the energy expended by the average individual player; and it seems to me to be a pious myth that cricket is more unselfish than tennis. No doubt there is effeminate lawn tennis, as there is effeminate cricket (“tea parties” and all); but let “Old Etonian” go to Wimbledon, to any tournament, and dare to describe what he sees as “pat-ball.”
Nevertheless, I do not object to any man playing cricket, if he can tolerate the game, though I see numbers of men who might have been fine tennis players wandering from county to county and alternately standing about and sitting about in front of ill-mannered and ill-dressed cricket crowds, while America triumphs on the tennis lawn. I only ask for the same liberty for ourselves.
I should not dream of calling your correspondent a “snob.” But I would ask him to go a little deeper. If he had pursued his researches at the universities he would have been told by any of the authorities that the average post-war undergraduate displayed an industry or keenness unlike anything that was known before the war. It is conceivable that the young men who go to luncheons in flannel collars do so because they have work to do before and after the meal. If he goes to the stalls on a first night he will see two or three young men in ordinary clothes. They are dramatic critics, and they will be earning their living till 2 o’clock in the morning. Snobbery is not his complaint, but lack of imagination.
As for our offspring, I beg that he will leave them alone. He is right in supposing that they will not be brought up as we were brought up.
I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
A. P. HERBERT
Alan Herbert, the humourist and future MP, had fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front after leaving Oxford.
Replied on 4 August 1921
Sir, “Old Etonian” deserves the thanks of the nation for exposing so lucidly the lack of manners and terrible effeminacy of our young men of to-day. At a reception which I attended recently I was astounded to note that not a single man was wearing knee breeches and ruffles and the ladies had completely discarded the crinoline. Instead of the sweeping bow, the delicate curtsey, and the gentle inquiry as to health, we find a revolting hearty handshake and an indelicate remark about stuffiness of the atmosphere. I was pained to see young men and — horribile dictu — young women smoking an abomination called a cigarette, and when I produced my patent folding churchwarden pipe there was a mild sensation.
In my young days we rollicked the summer days away playing croquet and bowls, but now the jeunesse dorée indulge in the grossly effeminate pastimes of golf and lawn tennis. It is indeed sad to see that a stalwart soldier like Earl Haig should have deserted the inspiring and breathlessly exciting game of croquet for that of hitting a stupid little ball round the countryside with an iron-headed stick.
“Old Etonian” need have no fear of being dubbed a snob. Far from it. He is of that gallant band who during the war would have insisted, had he been able, upon the tanks being decorated with inscribed standards and being heralded into action by the massed bands of the Brigade of Guards, flanked by the Life Guards in full-dress uniform, or Grand Rounds at dead of night making his inspection of trenches fully cuirassed to a fanfare of trumpets and preceded by a choir of seven lance-corporals chanting “Floreat Etona.”
Yours, &c.,
RAYMOND SAVAGE
* * * * * * *

RatSkin Gloves
28 January 1920
Sir, Is it not possible in these times of a world shortage of raw material (especially leather) for such serviceable articles as rat skins to be put to some useful purpose? It will be generally conceded that if a market can be found or created for such skins it will be an incentive for the destruction of these noxious rodents, which is so essential. It is possible there are at present a few buyers, but so far I have been unable to discover them. Any information on this point will be appreciated. For someone with enterprise and imagination rat skins should be a sound commercial proposition — they would make excellent leather purses and gloves.
Yours faithfully,
GEORGE L. MOORE
* * * * * * *

repression IN IRELAND
14 September 1920
Sir, On August 24 a conference in Dublin of moderate men of all parties demanded, amongst other things, as the preliminary condition of an Irish settlement the abandonment of the policy of repression.
Few Englishmen have any idea of the lengths to which this policy has been carried. Most Englishmen know simply that some 80 members of the Royal Irish Constabulary have been murdered, and they take it for granted that the Government’s repressive measures are necessary to put an end to these outrages, and that they are designed for this and no other purpose. Consequently, the actual state of government and justice in Ireland has not been scrutinized carefully, and Englishmen hear little of proceedings that are bringing danger and dishonour upon us. If these proceedings were a kind to put an end to outrages and not to cause further mischief, they would not have called down the condemnation of men like Lord Monteagle, Lord Shaftesbury, Sir Horace Plunkett, and the other leading Irishmen who took part in the conference at Dublin.
The Coercion Act, with the regulations issued for is administration, marks the climax of this policy. Court-martial justice will become the rule. It is provided that men may be kept indefinitely in prison without trial. A Court may sit in secret. If a Court believes that a particular person is able to give evidence, he or she may be arrested. Any person who does an act with a view to promoting or calculated to promote the objects of an lawful association is guilty of an offence against these regulations. As the Gaelic League, which was founded to revive Irish culture, and Dail Eireann1 (#ulink_69da0914-f740-540c-9866-0f334e089309), which represents two-thirds of the Irish people, are unlawful associations, all but a small minority of Irishmen may be convicted on this charge. This is not a system of justice adapted for the detection and punishment of crime; it is designed for the punishment of a political movement, and it puts every Irishman who holds the opinions held by the great majority of Irishmen at mercy of the military authorities.
These authorities are the officers of an army employed on a task hateful to British soldiers and living in an atmosphere of bitter hostility to the native population. Indignation has been naturally excited in this army by a series of murders which the Government been unable to punish. Discipline has broken down. A sort of military lynch law is in force, applied not to the culprits but to the villages and towns of Ireland. It is not an uncommon experience for whole streets to be burnt, creameries2 (#ulink_2a7affcc-897e-5ce1-bd3d-a86bee078473) destroyed, and life taken in the indiscriminate reprisals by which soldiers and policemen avenge murder of constables. Not for a century has there been an outbreak of military violence in these islands. The Government have failed to restrain or punish this violence, and they have now taken steps to prevent any civilian Court from calling attention to it. They have issued an order forbidding the holding of coroners’ inquests in nine counties. This removes the last vestige of protection from the civilian population. In the “Manual of Military Law” it is laid down that, whereas a man acquitted or convicted by a civil Court may not be retried by military Court, a person subject to military law is not to be exempted from the civil-law by reason of his military status. The Government have now decided that if soldiers or policemen fire a town or shoot civilians they are to be immune from the danger of an inquiry by a Court not under military direction.
In Ireland Englishmen are judged by their actions alone. No assurances of good will have the slightest effect on public opinion there; no English promises make it easier for moderate opinion to get a hearing. Every solution of the Irish question presupposes a friendly feeling between England and Ireland, and we are stimulating hatred.
Thus only by changing our executive policy can we create the atmosphere necessary to the successful working of any solution whatever of the Irish question.
We are, Sir, yours faithfully,
ERNEST BARKER
PHILIP GIBBS
CHARLES GORE
HUBERT GOUGH
J. L. HAMMOND
L. T. HOBHOUSE
DESMOND MACCARTHY
JOHN MASEFIELD
C. E. MONTAGUE
GILBERT MURRAY
C. P. SCOTT
H. G. WELLS
BASIL WILLIAMS
1 (#ulink_0ca61942-ca05-5105-8b7b-835499d3b495) The parliament formed by Irish republicans on declaring independence from Britain in 1919
2 (#ulink_243ab4fe-15fd-53cb-89ab-ac5a82fcef8a) Butter was an important export and co-operative agricultural ventures, of which dairies were the most numerous, were central to rural Irish life
The Government’s measures only fuelled greater violence, which continued to escalate until a truce was signed in 1921. Ireland was partitioned and the next year the Irish Free State came into being.
* * * * * * *

Wigs and Gowns
1 April 1922
Sir, I am glad to say that I do not know the name of any member of the Committee of Judges and Benchers of the Inns of Court whose recommendations concerning the forensic costume of women barristers you publish this morning 31 March. I can therefore criticize their “wishes” without fear or favour.
I have no fault to find with what they recommend about gowns, bands, or dresses. As to wigs, I think they are hopelessly wrong. A wig is, historically and essentially, not a covering, but a substitute for natural hair. I believe the history of the forensic wig to be in substance as follows. About the period of the Restoration, some of the leaders of fashion in France, for reasons of cleanliness and health, took to shaving their heads. They accordingly wore wigs, which soon became very large and elaborate. The fashion found such favour that for something like a century all gentlemen, when fully dressed, wore wigs. During this time they either shaved their heads, or cropped their hair very close, and probably also wore night-caps when in bed.
Then the wig gradually disappeared, and the modern method of cutting the hair short, but just long enough to make an efficient covering for the head, was gradually adopted. Judges and barristers followed this practice like other people, but found that, as long as the hair was short, the wig formed a distinctive, dignified, and convenient headdress for use in court. If women barristers are going to cut their hair short as we cut ours, our wigs will suit them well enough, but I do not believe they will do anything of the kind.
The Committee wish that their wigs “should completely cover and conceal the hair.” Why they entertain this wish I cannot imagine. Our wigs by no means completely cover and conceal our hair. Suppose a woman barrister wears her hair “bobbed.” Her wig, if it completely conceals her hair, will certainly not be an “ordinary barrister’s wig.” Suppose she has plenty of hair, and wears it coiled in one of the usual ways. She will then want one pattern of wig when fashion places the coils on top of her head, another when they are resting on the back of her neck, and a third when they approach the situation of the old fashioned chignon, high up on the back of the head. Each of the three will impart to the wearer a hydrocephalous, ungainly, and ludicrous appearance.
It must be apparent to every one, except the Committee, that women barristers ought to wear a distinctive, and probably dark-coloured, headdress, in approximately the form of a biretta, a turban, or a toque. I use each of these terms with very great diffidence.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
HERBERT STEPHEN
* * * * * * *

Unjust Divorce Laws
11 October 1922
Sir, During the last weeks of the Summer Term, at the request of the Lord Chancellor, I undertook the trial of undefended suits for divorce and heard about four hundred cases. They were taken in due order from the list, and included every class, but with a large preponderance of the poor, owing to their numbers, and also to the difficulty of their getting decent homes.
The experience was startling, and explains why it is that practically every Judge on whom a similar duty has devolved has urged an alteration of the law. I believe that the reason why this demand is not universal is that the facts are not known, and false modesty prevents their disclosure. Women’s societies pass resolutions declaring that if any change be made, equality must be established between men and women, forgetting, or not knowing, that the present law produces the most insulting inequality, and that it is in the interests of women that reform is sought.
Plain facts need plain speech, and I beg, without apology, to ask attention to the following statement, based on the cases I tried, prefaced only by saying that I scrutinized the evidence with especial care, and that I am satisfied as to the truth of what I state.
A woman marries a man, and is at once infected by him with syphilis. She is an innocent woman, and knows nothing as to what is wrong until the disease has her fast in its grip. The doctor is satisfied that infection occurred immediately on marriage; consequently the law politely bows her out of Court and makes her pay the cost of her struggle for liberty. In the particular case to which I refer, the husband had deserted the woman, and it was possible to prove, though with difficulty, that he had also transferred his “affections” to someone else; but for this his wife was bound for life.
Another woman had been made the victim of the unspeakable savagery of brutal and perverted lust. She also must have remained bound by the bonds of matrimony, enforced by violence, but that her husband went to satisfy his fury elsewhere, and was found out.
A third was deserted, after a week, by a soldier who went to the American continent, where he might have lived unmolested for ever in a life of peaceful adultery, but as he violated two children he also was discovered, and she was able to be free.
I could multiply the recital of individual cases, but lack of space forbids, and the general conditions need attention.
Bigamy was extremely common, but entirely confined to poor persons, for bigamy is not a vice of wealth; the rich can find other less illegal outlets for their emotions. The existing statute, however, provides that bigamy is not sufficient ground for divorce — it must be “bigamy with adultery” — and, though it might be assumed, anywhere outside a law Court, that a man who has risked penal servitude to obtain possession of a woman was not prompted by platonic love, yet the law requires independent proof of the adultery. Further, by a decision now sixty-five years old, this adultery must be with the bigamous wife — adultery with any number of other people is quite inadequate.
On the wisdom and justice of this ancient judgment I will not comment, but it throws great difficulty in the way of a woman who can prove that her husband has been convicted of bigamy, but finds it difficult to trace and obtain evidence of adultery; quoad hanc1 (#ulink_6be792fa-82f2-53d8-91ea-2a8e185c6efa), in one case before me, she almost failed.
Among the poorer people desertion was the commonest event: rich folk walk more delicately, and, being in a hurry, obtain a decree for restitution, to be obeyed in a fortnight, instead of waiting two years. It was, of course, only in the rare instances where the deserting husband could be traced and his undoubted adultery legally proved that any relief would be obtained. In one such case the husband, who had first insulted and then deserted his wife, left the country in a ship with the woman with his affection for whom he had often taunted his wife, but, of course, that did not constitute legal proof of adultery, but merely companionship.
In no case that I tried did there appear to me the faintest chance of reconciliation; the marriage tie had been broken beyond repair and its sanctity utterly defiled; nor, again, though I watched with extreme vigilance, was there any single case where collusion could be suggested. With regard to cruelty, there was no case which a competent lawyer, skilled in the knowledge of witnesses, could not have tried.
I was, of course, faced with the question as to what is cruelty, which, we are informed, is so difficult that you want the King’s Proctor as an expert in cruelty to keep the law steady. I made my own rules. If a man who was sober kicked his wife in the stomach when she was pregnant, that seemed to me enough; if she were not pregnant, and he was drunk, he might have to do it again or else her complaint might be due to what the most persistent opponent of my Bill called “nervous irritation.” So, also, with kicking her downstairs, or making her sleep on the doormat in winter — all of which cases I had to consider. But, however brutal and repeated the cruelty, no divorce must be granted for it, or we shall Americanize our institutions and soil the sanctity of English homes.
I had no case before me involving the question of lunacy or criminality, for these, as the law stands, are irrelevant considerations in connexion with divorce; but the evidence on that is near at hand. Within the last few months two women have been left eternally widowed, with their husbands fast immured in criminal lunatic asylums, and in this unnatural state they will remain while the shadow of the years lengthens and life’s day grows dim. Surely the desire to help such people is not, as some appear to think, prompted by a Satan, but is a humble effort to carry out the principle of the supplication which asks that, while our own wants are satisfied, we should not be unmindful of the wants of others.
Parliament will shortly resume its work. Our divorce laws have been condemned by the most competent authority as immoral and unjust. The House of Lords has patiently heard every argument that can be advanced against further change from the lips of the most skilful advocates, and has repeatedly, and by emphatic majorities, demanded reform. Common sense — but for respect to my adversaries I should have added common decency — rejecting the existing law. Is it asking too much to entreat the Government to afford a chance to Parliament to cleanse our laws from this disgrace?
Yours faithfully,
BUCKMASTER
1 (#ulink_d8ea14f4-db00-5ad8-ad80-cbed1909acbc) In legal Latin, the sexual impotence of the husband
Viscount Buckmaster had been Lord Chancellor from 1915–16. Men were able to obtain a divorce on proof of a wife’s adultery, but women had to prove both a husband’s adultery and another reason, such as domestic violence. Despite Buckmaster’s efforts, the law was eventually reformed, largely at the instigation of AP Herbert, only in 1937.
* * * * * * *

The Spectacle of Respectable
8 February 1923
Sir, Is it not time that the official categories of respectability were revised?
In order to secure the renewal of a passport, it is necessary to obtain a signed declaration of identity and fitness from a mayor, magistrate, justice of the peace, minister of religion, barrister-at-law, physician, surgeon, solicitor, or bank manager, with whom the applicant is personally acquainted; and similar lists are found on many other official forms. On what principle they were compiled I know not, but they cause considerable inconvenience, and defeat their own end.
I never knew a mayor. But I have known many Civil servants of reasonable integrity, and in my neighbourhood are two or three not more unscrupulous than the rest of their profession; I am friendly with two editors; I know a peer; several stockbrokers, baronets, novelists, and Members of Parliament would readily swear that I am a fit and proper person to go to France. But these gentlemen are not worthy, and I am forced to search any casual acquaintance for magistrates and dental surgeons, who, in fact, know nothing about me.
For persons even poorer than myself the difficulty is more serious. As a rule, the only “respectable” people they know are the physician and the clergyman, and why should these alone be bothered with the things? Why not the policeman, the postman, the landlord, the tax collector? Things have come to a pretty pass in this democratic age if the word of an attorney is more than the word of a publisher: and if we cannot trust a policeman, whom can we trust?
The result, in most cases, is that the applicant obtains a solemn declaration from that one of his acquaintance who knows least about him. This is the kind of trivial official rubbish which is allowed to endure forever because no one thinks it worth while to protest. I therefore protest that these antiquated and offensive lists should be revised, as above, or, if that be too daring, abolished altogether. Why not simply “a householder”?
I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
A. P. HERBERT
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Gathering Nuts in May
9 May 1923
Sir, I remember that, when I read the Classics, I had always a liking for the reading of the manuscript and a distaste for emendations. It is probably the same instinct which leads me to think that “nuts in May” are really nuts. (But I remember that, when I joined in the chant some forty years ago, we used to say “nutsimay,” and I liked the mysterious sound, and wondered what “nutsimay” was.) If nuts do not grow upon trees in May, I conceive it to be possible that they grow in the ground. Certainly one of my pleasantest memories is that of hunting for nuts in the ground (a long time ago) somewhere about the month of May. They were to be found on a little bank, overshadowed by trees, that overhung a disused quarry. You knew their presence by the tender green shoots which grew from them; and when you saw those shoots, you took your knife, made a small excavation, and had a succulent reward. I have consulted the New English Dictionary (my general refuge in all mental perplexities), and I have found there, s.v. groundnut, the admirable entry which awakens a pleased reminiscence and rumination. “Bunium flexuosum: Culpepper, English Physitian, 64; they are called earth-nuts, earth-chestnuts, groundnuts.”
What I cannot really remember is whether we actually gathered Bunia flexuosa in May. But while I cannot prove it (except by the obvious device of consulting some scientific work of reference), I flatter myself that it is extremely probable. In any case, there was some real fun in gathering this sort of nut. It was elusive; it was succulent; it was neither so obvious, nor so unsatisfactory, as your hazel nut.
But it pains me to think of these things. They belong to the Arcadia of a vanished youth. Où sont les neiges d’antan? Where are the nuts of yester-year?
Yours obediently,
ERNEST BARKER
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Nestletripes and Piggy-Widdens
7 June 1923
Sir, “Tantony” is a new name to me for the small one of a litter of pigs or dogs. Some years ago I made the following collection of names all in use in various parts of the country:
Nisgil (Midlands), Nisledrige and Nestletripe (Devon), Darling, Daniel, Dolly and Harry (Hants), Underling, Rickling, Reckling, Little David (Kent), Dillin, Dilling (Stratford-on-Avon), Cad, Gramper, Nestletribe, Nestledrag, Nestlebird, Dab-Chick, Wastrill, Weed, Dandlin, Anthony, Runt, Parson’s Pig (the least valuable to be devoted to tithe purposes), Nest Squab, Putman, Ratling, Dorneedy (Scottish), The Titman (Vermont), Nestledraft, Pigot, Rutland, Luchan, Piggy-Widden.
Yours faithfully,
EDWIN BROUGH
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A Diamond in the Rough
28 October 1924
Sir, As one who has sampled most British sports, may I say a word upon baseball? It seems to me that in those Press comments which I have been able to see too much stress is laid upon what may appear to us to be a weakness or a comic aspect in the game and not nearly enough upon its real claim on our attention. I fully agree that the continual ragging is from a British view-point a defect, but baseball is a game which is continually in process of development and improvement, as anyone who reads Arthur Mathewson’s interesting book on the subject is aware.
The foul tricks which were once common are now hardly known, and what was once applauded, or at any rate tolerated, would now be execrated. Therefore, this rough badinage may pass away and it is not an essential of the game. What is essential is that here is a splendid game which calls for a fine eye, activity, bodily fitness, and judgment in the highest degree. This game needs no expensive levelling of a field, its outfit is within the reach of any village club, it takes only two or three hours in the playing, it is independent of wet wickets, and the player is on his toes all the time, and not sitting on a pavilion bench while another man makes his century. If it were taken up by our different Association teams as a summer pastime I believe it would sweep this country as it has done America. At the same time it would no more interfere with cricket than lawn tennis has done. It would find its own place. What we need now is a central association which would advise and help the little clubs in the first year of their existence.
Yours faithfully,
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Conan Doyle was a keen sportsman who had played first-class cricket. He also helped to introduce skiing to Switzerland from Scandinavia, and so popularise the sport in Britain.
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Long Lives in The Times
1 January 1925
Sir, On the front page of The Times last year there were reported the deaths of 402 persons of 90 years of age and over. Of these 123 were men (including 18 clerks in holy orders) and 279 women; of the latter 178 were married. The number of those who reached their century is eight; of these two were men and six women, two of whom were 105 and had been married. Four others (two men, one a clerk) were 99. Besides the above named, 95 attained their 90th year, 28 men (six clerks) and 67 women, of whom 30 were married. The number of nonagenarians who have died in the last ten years is 3,153, a yearly average of 315, ranging from 263 in 1918 to last year’s big total of 402. The number of centenarians for the same period is 55, the most in one year being 11 in 1923.
In other parts of The Times deaths have been reported of 40 others who had been born before or during 1824. Of these four were 103; six, 104; one, 105; four, 106; and one, 107. Under “News in Brief” on 16 August, John Campbell, of County Antrim, aged 112, is reported dead; and on 18 August, under “Telegrams in Brief,” the same is told of Alexa Vivier, of Manitoba, who had reached the, nowadays, patriarchal age of 113.
I am, etc.,
C. B. GABB
Ten years later, Mr Gabb wrote to The Times to mark its 150th birthday. He noted that Zaro Agha, a Turk who had recently died, supposedly aged 157, could (and undoubtedly would) have read 46,950 issues of the newspaper — had he not been illiterate.
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All Greek to me
22 January 1925
Sir, Reading with great interest the pleasant controversy between the Headmaster of Christ’s Hospital and Mr. Austen Chamberlain, I have noticed that my own beloved and reverend headmaster, Mr. J. S. Phillpotts, is as alert and vigilant as ever.
The issue that has been raised is an old one, and as false as it always has been. Controversialists start on the wrong tack when they assume that learning and teaching grammar must be dull and unstimulating. Nothing is more untrue. There is everything in grammar, the accidence as well as the syntax of language, to make it as stimulating to thought and the imagination and as full of humour as any instrument of education. Witness the inexhaustible romance of the verbs in -μι, the miraculous history of the Greek preposition, or the indefinable wonders of the subjunctive mood!
HUBERT M. OXON:
Hubert Burge, Bishop of Oxford
Replied on 23 January 1925
Sir, The Bishop of Oxford’s letter gives a delightful picture of cultured boyhood. We see him indulging in a hearty laugh with his headmaster on the vagaries of εἰμί, or walking, a slender stripling, in a summer sunset, tracing with wistful eyes the romance of the subjunctive mood into the glowing West!
I began teaching as an Eton master in 1885, and taught classics there for nearly 20 years, starting with a whole-hearted faith in their merits for educational purposes, and coming gradually and reluctantly to a very different conclusion.
The average boy without literary and linguistic aptitude never seemed to me to get within reach of Latin and Greek as living things at all.
I am, &c.,
A. C. BENSON
Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge
Hubert Burge had been headmaster of Winchester, which no doubt explains his and Benson’s differing success rates with their pupils. The latter perhaps exerted more influence over the heirs to Greece and Rome by writing the words to “Land of Hope
and Glory”.
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Witnessing the Russian Revolution in 1917
9 March 1925
Sir, Saturday was the anniversary of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. No one who was present in Petrograd at the time is likely to forget it. During the morning and early afternoon, sullen crowds thronged all the main streets. Mounted police moved quietly among them. There was no disorder, all seemed to be waiting for something; they might have been workmen outside the gates of a factory before opening time. Nevertheless one felt instinctively that the atmosphere was charged. It reminded one of the strange, gloomy silence that so often comes before a storm.
I boarded a tramway car to visit some people near the Nikolai Station. It was very crowded, but I was able to stand in front near the driver. As we proceeded up the Nevsky Prospect I became aware that a lady I knew was a fellow-traveller. I suggested that she should stay with the friend she was on her way to visit, and not attempt to return, as I felt there was going to be trouble.
I had hardly spoken the words when there rose a dull murmur, and one caught snatches of “Give us bread, we are hungry.” The tramway car was not travelling fast owing to the crowds. A university student jumped on to the footboard, said something to the driver, and then turned to the control lever, and the car came to a standstill. This held up all the rest, so my friend and I got off and walked. I took her to her destination, and begged her friends to keep her for the night, and then returned to Nevsky.
There I found everything changed. The placid dullness of these sullen crowds was replaced by alertness and excitement. As I neared the statue of Alexander III, a workman ascended to the plinth, and began to address the people. A policeman approached and remonstrated. The speaker refused either to get down or stop talking, whereupon the policeman drew his revolver, and shot him. It was the match to the fire; the smouldering fuse had reached the powder, and it went off. The Revolution had begun. In 20 minutes there was hardly a vestige of that unfortunate policeman left. Men, women, and even children fell upon him and literally tore him to pieces. One could hardly
believe that those sad, silent people of half an hour before could have
been suddenly transformed into such savages, lusting for the blood of the wretched man.
After this the crowd moved down Nevsky in one solid mass, were met by police, and were fired on. Every one knows the rest: innocent and guilty alike were shot down until the troops joined the people, and the so-called “bloodless Revolution” began.
I am, etc.,
B. S. LOMBARD
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A Swindle by Telephone
16 January 1926
Sir, I wish to warn your readers about a swindle, which has trapped even astute men of business. The modus operandi is a telephone call from a person claiming to be a friend or to have a business or personal connection with the victim. The gentleman is in distress, having been robbed of his purse.
Would his friend help him with a telegraph remittance in the nearest post office to enable him to return to his home in the counties? This in itself sounds bald and unconvincing, but is elaborated with sufficient circumstantial detail to make the story appear genuine. The device comes from America, where it appears to be very successfully played, and is a very profitable transaction for the swindler, who will continue to make a handsome revenue if the public is not warned.
The most effective answer is to promise the required help and then, immediately, to communicate with the police, who, if the case is genuine, can render the assistance needed, or, if not, can put a stop to these activities. No doubt the trick will appear in varying disguises, so as to keep it fresh, but the net result will be the same.
Yours truly,
VIGILANS
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Il Duce Writes
26 June 1925
Sir, I am very sensible of the fact that your most important paper attentively follows my political and polemical manifestations. Allow me, however, to rectify some statements contained in your last editorial.
It does not correspond with facts that the last Bills voted by the Italian Chamber are against the most elementary liberties, whereof you will be convinced by carefully considering the article of the aforesaid laws. It is not true that patriots are discontented. On the contrary, the truth is that the opposition is carried on by a small dispossessed group, while the enormous majority of the Italian people works and lives quietly, as foreigners sojourning in my country may daily ascertain. Please note also that Fascism counts 3,000,000 adherents, whereof 2,000,000 are Syndicalist workmen and peasants, these representing the politically organized majority of the nation. Even the Italian Opposition now recognizes the great historical importance of the Fascist experiment, which has to be firmly continued in order not to fail in its task of morally and materially elevating the Italian people, and also in the interest of European civilization. Please accept my thanks and regards.
I am, &c.,
MUSSOLINI
The Times had criticised Il Duce’s repression of the press and political opposition. Himself a former journalist, Benito Mussolini was keenly aware of the influence of the media on public opinion, at home and abroad.
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Making Proper Porridge
17 August 1925
Sir, The recipe given last Saturday for porridge is not very helpful, nothing being said as to the quantity of water or of oatmeal a person.
The time for preparation given as 1½ hour’s boiling, during which stirring is to be frequent and therefore attendance constant, is enough to scare off anyone not cursed with too much leisure from attempting to supply an article of food which has no need to be so costly of one’s time and for firing.
It is impossible to make good, appetizing porridge in a double saucepan, the only means of cooking it without stirring at frequent intervals, for the simple reason that it is not possible to bring the contents of the inner pan to the boil, and porridge that has not boiled for some time will not “set” when poured out: and if it will not “set” it is not nearly so palatable as if it does set. Porridge that is set will slide out of your plate a few minutes after being poured into it without leaving a smear behind. It is of a jelly-like consistency, not a viscous half-cooked mess. I repeat that it is impossible to attain this consistency with a double pan, and so far I agree with “E. E. K.” I merely mention this to emphasize it. Having, then, a single unjacketed saucepan of a capacity equal to twice the amount of water to be put into it — so as to avoid boiling over, which porridge is very prone to do — put into it, overnight if porridge is wanted in the morning, or, say, for six hours before wanted, for every person or for each small soup-plateful of porridge required, 2oz. of best coarse Scotch oatmeal, and not any of the crushed and mangled or otherwise pre-treated substitutes. Add one pint of water, and leave to soak. About half an hour before it is required bring it to the boil and take care that it does not boil over, stirring nearly all the time. Then keep it gently boiling for 20 minutes, stirring often enough to prevent sticking and burning. Finally boil briskly for five minutes and pour into a tureen or direct into the soup plates from which it is to be eaten. As much salt as will stand on a sixpence may be added per portion when the oatmeal is put into soak, or not, as desired.
To enjoy porridge properly it should be “set,” thoroughly swollen, and boiled, which the above treatment ensures, and eaten with plenty, say 1/3 pint per portion, of the best and freshest milk. There may be added salt, or sugar, or cream, or all three; or it may be eaten with treacle. Half an hour is ample for boiling, and I have cooked it satisfactorily in 20 minutes frequently. But it must boil, and not merely stew. Scattering the meal into the water is done to prevent it binding into lumps. It rarely does this if put into cold water for six hours before boiling begins, but it is just as well to see that there are no lumps before leaving to soak. I know of no reason why soaking beforehand should be objected to, and it saves firing and the cook’s time and trouble.
W. B. HOPKINS
Porridge, like trains, schools and the younger generation, appears to be a subject guaranteed to raise strong passions in the breast of every generation of Times readers.
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Cold snakes
13 April 1926
Sir, The truth of the statement in the last sentence of your note on Puff Adders and Pythons (The Times, February 13), about a cold snake being nearly always a relatively safe snake, is well borne out by an experience of my own.
While shooting in the Bindraban nala, in Pangi, in 1913, I was after a red bear one cold, drizzly, wet day. The bear was on a high, grass-topped ridge while I was on a lower one running parallel.
I had looked about for a good place from which to take a lying down shot, and, having found a flat rock with a nice slope, lay down. My knees — bare, as I was in “shorts” — were on the ground at the edge of the stone.
Having wriggled about until I was in a comfortable position, and after having sighted the bear, I concluded it was not good enough to risk a shot at that long range, so sat back on my “hunkers”.
To my very great surprise and fear, there was a snake coiled, sitting up and watching me from the very place in which my left knee had been pressing into the ground, and still well within striking distance of my knee! It made no effort either to strike or get away while I remained still, but when I sprawled backwards it made off.
When I had killed it with a stone, I found that it was a very good 26in. specimen of the Himalayan pit viper (Ancistrodon Himalayanus). The height up would be somewhere between 10,000 ft. and 11,000 ft., and it was, as I have already said, a cold day, with a thin rain falling every now and again; but as my left knee must have been actually pressing upon the snake, it was fortunate that it was a “cold” snake with which I had had to deal.
I am,
T. H. SCOTT
United Service Club, Simla.
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Mr MacDonald’s Honorary Degree
8 June 1926
Sir, Since the recent unfortunate occurrence may easily be misinterpreted outside, or even inside, this University, may I express what I know to be the feeling of others also, from the point of view of one who has twice voted for Mr MacDonald’s party at General Elections, but who would probably have abstained from voting either way on the question of his degree?
A memorial has been circulated in Cambridge deploring that this incident will embarrass, or even destroy, the convention of offering honorary degrees to politicians as such, apart from any direct services which they may have rendered to learning, letters, or art. Some of us, on the other hand, while deeply regretting this incident on other grounds, would welcome that result, and rejoice that some good, at least, had emerged from the present evil. Many, even among Mr MacDonald’s political opponents, have the greatest admiration for what he did, as Foreign Minister, in the cause of this country and of world-peace. They heartily regret that, practice in these matters having been what it has been, the first break in that practice during the last few years should seem to imply personal discourtesy to Mr MacDonald. But they cannot agree with the memorialists in branding the small group of determined opponents as persons whose political intolerance humiliates this University; they feel that this would come perilously near to denying the right of conscientious objection to all persons whose objections we ourselves do not happen to share.
Is there any real way out of this difficulty, so long as universities are in the habit of offering Doctorates in Law to politicians or soldiers as such? It is argued that the honour is here offered not to the politician but to the distinguished servant of the Crown, ex officio. If that were clearly understood on all sides; if it were generally known that the Prime Minister is thus to be honoured automatically, while others must take their chance of an adverse vote, this would certainly remove the misgivings felt by many at the present moment. Although an honour is certainly somewhat lessened by being automatic, yet such a clear understanding would relieve us from our present attempt to fly in the face of nature, and to combine the advantages of free will with those of absolute obedience to rule. We should be a very dead University if there were not strong differences of political opinion, accentuated by the present crisis.
Is it not a contradiction in terms to say that we offer degrees to politicians qua politicians, yet without reference to their politics? At least, this is contrary both to reason and to practice in normal cases, where the scholar, the littérateur, and the artist are chosen with the directest and most explicit reference to the value of their performances in scholarship, literature, or art. There are men here who joined in a similar public protest against Lord Randolph Churchill’s degree; this did not prevent Lord Randolph from receiving his degree on a majority vote. It is as certain as anything can be that Mr MacDonald would have had a sweeping majority; to doubt this would be to suggest, by that very doubt, the strongest possible justification for the opposers’ action. In the absence of absolutely clear understandings and precedents, this matter could not possibly have been emptied of all political significance. Some people (as things are at this moment) would have found political significance in the unopposed grant of a degree; even more will find political significance in the fact that it was opposed. Therefore (to repeat my earliest question in a different form), must not a politician be always ready to face a politician’s chances?
If universities deliberately intend that a certain studied gesture, when made to a politician, should mean something essentially different from that identical gesture towards a scientist, then ought it not to be understood beforehand, beyond any possibility of misconception, that this offer of a degree is simply an automatic sequel to the King’s offer of the Premiership?
Yours, &c.,
G. G. COULTON
Cambridge University had been debating whether to award the customary honorary degree to Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour leader, after he became Prime Minister.
Some dons took issue with his opposition to the First World War and his recent encouraging of the General Strike. MacDonald eventually let it be known he did not want the honour. Nearly 60 years later, Oxford would find itself in the same position – see page (#litres_trial_promo)
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The Yale’s Horns
15 June 1926
Sir, A few years ago, when the King’s Beasts were placed on the bridge over the moat leading to the gateway at Hampton Court Palace, I was distressed beyond measure at the effigy of the Yale1 (#ulink_b812b4e6-0bfb-50aa-917a-a0fe97d650c4). Both its horns were directed backwards! I drew the attention of the late Lord Harcourt to this on more than one occasion, and he was genuinely vexed and said that something must be done. But judging by a picture postcard I have recently received, nothing has been done.
My distress and grief have been increased by the action of those who are responsible for restoring the King’s Beasts on the outside of the Royal Chapel at Windsor, for here again the Yale has both horns pointing backwards. The Dean of Windsor kindly lent me for a day or two a little book which clearly shows this appalling lack of appreciation of what a Yale really is. For it is in the very essence of a Yale to have one horn pointing forward over the nose and the other horn pointing backwards. I have traced the history of the Yale back to the fourth or fifth Egyptian dynasty, back to the old kingdom, nearly 3,000 years bc. One finds them repeatedly throughout Egyptian art. Herodotus describes them as ỏπισθονóμοί, because their horns curve forward in front of their heads so that it is not possible for them when grazing to move forward, as in that case their horns would become fixed in the ground. Aristotle gives a similar account. Pliny describes their horns as mobile, so that should the front horn be injured in a contest the horns are swivelled round and the hinder horn now comes into action. But in spite of Pliny’s uncritical mind and unbridled fancy, he could hardly have invented the Yale. At the present time certain of the domesticated cattle in the great territory of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, to the south of the White Nile, have their horns trained by the natives, one to project forward and one to project backwards.
One of the Canons of Windsor states that the new King’s Beast on the outside of the Royal Chapel was copied from one in the interior of the chapel. Should this be the case, those who have been or are responsible for the King’s Beasts at Windsor are doubly guilty, for they are misleading the public not only without but within the walls of the sacred edifice. It is impossible to test the accuracy of this statement owing to the present reparations to the building. A distinguished archaeologist in the neighbourhood of Windsor who has been kind enough to inspect for me the false Yales on the outside of the chapel, writes that “we can do little but mourn.” But surely that is a counsel of despair. At Hampton Court Palace, and still more on or in the Royal Chapel at Windsor, under the very shadow of Royalty, we might at least expect a certain degree of historical and heraldic accuracy in such matters as the King’s Beasts, and the horns of the Yales should be set right.
I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
A. E. SHIPLEY
1 (#ulink_a8b3501c-9941-5838-a5ef-6da9f2e7b629) A mythical beast akin to an ibex used in heraldry and associated with the arms of the Royal Family since Tudor times. It also figures in those of Christ’s College, Cambridge, of which Shipley was Master.
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Timed Out
5 July 1926
Sir, The Eton and Harrow match is again at hand. May an imponderable quantity, who with countless other such, has suffered from four consecutive draws, venture a suggestion?
Whatever the rule, could it not be the practice in this match for the ingoing batsman always to leave the pavilion gate for the wicket as the outgoing batsman reaches the pavilion gate? Considering that there are 30 to 40 intervals on the fall of wickets, during each of which at least a minute (on the average) is lost, more than half an hour would be saved. Last year’s match would have been finished and not impossibly that of the year before. In fact, one has seen several draws in this match which another half-hour would have converted into a win.
This definite practice would have one other advantage: it would automatically save whichever side was tempted in that direction from lingering to the legal limit between wickets to avert defeat. Good sportsmanship, as a rule, takes care of that, but one remembers hearing shouts of “Hurry up!” The reasons against this saving of time no doubt will now be given to him, for they are with difficulty imagined by
Your faithful servant,
JOHN GALSWORTHY
The Nobel Prize-winning novelist had been captain of football at Harrow. His suggestion did not bear fruit until 1980, since when incoming batsmen can be given out unless they get to the wicket within a short time, now 3 minutes.
The annual cricket match against Eton was a highlight of the summer Season.
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Silly Point
11 August 1926
Sir, Down ’ere we be ’mazed along o’ they writer chaps an’ the goin’s on o’ they Testës. Laws be laws, an’ rools be rools, an’ they as makes ’em should keep ’em. Paarson — they sez as ’ow the rev’rend gentleman played fer the Blues afore ’e was so ’igh — tell’d us: “Once they arm-chair crickets gets yer into the papers, yer ’ave to be’ave yerself ’cardin’lye. That be the crucks of the matter.” I never learned French lingo, but we agrees along of ’im. So do Joe Rummery, as ’as umpir’d fer us nigh fitty yers.
Laast Saturday we at Firlin’ played a side from Lunnon — furriners, they be — an’ we ’ad two goes apiece, though I knaws we only played from foor till eight, cuz Farmer Beckley said Eb an’ me must finish that ten-acre field first.
I was out twice leg-afore, an’ it bain’t no use sayin’ “wot fer,” cuz Joe wunt be druv. “If it ’its yer leg, yer goes out, sartin sure,” sez Joe, who knaws the rools. Joe ’as the same coppers to count over-balls as when he started, with picturs o’ the Good Queen on ’em.
We thinks as ’ow they chaps at Lunnon be narvous, else ’ow should they be allus callin’ fer tay as soon as they be done dinner? An’ these paper chaps makes ’em wuss, a-tellin’ us wot it be about, pilin’ up pettigues (Paarson sez “worries”), till they batters wunt knaw whether they should be ther at all, or som’eres else.
Firlin’s played ’ere ’unnerds o’ yers, long afore that ther Mary Bone lady started ’er pitch at Lards in Lunnon, though we likes ’er, an’ ’opes she’ll keep purty blithesome an’ not fergit that we be cricketers too. We ain’t wantin’ foor stumps, as we finds three a plenty, an’ we ain’t thinkin’ that they pros an’ such like ’ave read the rools. If they did as Paarson sez his Irish friend did — when yer sees a ’ead, ’it it— ther wouldn’t be no cause fer this gurt talk o’ foor days.
I am, &c.,
F. CARTWRIGHT
It was felt in cricketing circles that, because of advances in preparing pitches, modern batsmen were scoring too freely off bowlers. Reforms to what was then regarded as the national game were mooted by correspondents to The Times. The options generally favoured were widening the wicket with an extra stump or extending the duration of first-class matches from three to four days in the hopes of enabling fewer to be drawn. In the event, no changes were made, prompting England some years later to target Australian batsmen rather than their wickets: see Bodyline p. 116.
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British Films
18 March 1927
Sir, I hope that Mr. Percival’s excellent letter in The Times last Wednesday will persuade those who still have minds to make up of the folly of the Government’s muddle-headed proposals for meeting mediocrity more than halfway. Professed patriots are at times very hard to understand. They prefer the word “British” to cover a multitude of sins rather than wishing it, as the more arrogant and less noisy of us do, to stand as a symbol of merit. Why a sandbag rather than a lantern?
On another page of your paper I read that a number of eminent authors and actors have placed their services at the disposal of a new enterprise called “British Incorporated Pictures.” This is, I think, the only country in the world that has not yet realized that films must be conceived and interpreted as films. None of the really great pictures have been adapted from books and few of the great performances, with the exception, of course, of Miss Pauline Frederick’s, have come from stage actors. Until literature and the theatre realize that the cinema is not a subsidiary concern to be despised intellectually and exploited financially we shall never get down to the real problem of producing good British films. After all, painters do not tell us that they are taking up the violin in order to help music!
Yours faithfully,
ELIZABETH BIBESCO
Elizabeth Bibesco was an author and the daughter of Herbert Asquith, the former Prime Minister, and his second wife Margot Tennant.
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hats Off
22 April 1927
Sir, A duty on hats would be no new thing. A century ago no self-respecting gentleman could visit France without bringing back a Paris bonnet as a present for a lady friend. But the gift was of no value unless it was smuggled. At the landing port a number of bareheaded women used to board the packet-boat on arrival. For a consideration, one would don a bonnet and go on shore with it thus making it free of duty. As soon as it was safely on land it was returned to its rightful owner. When I was a boy my father used to tell me stories of the filthy heads on which the Paris creations were brought on to British soil.
There is a legend that one of the Imperial crowns of Delhi, in the possession of an English officer after the Mutiny, was similarly brought to England, but on the head of the owner’s baby. That baby it is said, later became a distinguished General.
I am, &c.
GEORGE A. GRIERSON
* * * * * * *

“Sarah was Right”
2 September 1927
Sir, Our weather prophets are sadly incapable of interpreting the future. I was confronted this morning with the problem of a hay crop that might have been carried but would be far better for a few hours’ sunshine. Daventry told me last night that I might expect two or three fine days. So did this morning’s paper. And the 10.30 broadcast gave a special message to farmers to the same effect. So I decided to wait a day.
But my cowman said: “Sir, you’re wrong; Sarah says it’s going to rain.” Now Sarah is a rheumaticky cow that has previously shown great talent in meteorological prediction, and she was very lame this morning. But I trusted the human experts.
Sarah was right.
I wonder if the Meteorological Office would buy her. Her lameness affects her milk yield, and her milk record this year is deplorably low.
I am, Sir, &c.
H. C. HONY
* * * * * * *

Gone to the dogs
23 December 1927
May I be permitted to express, on behalf of the executive committee of the Girls’ Life Brigade, strong disapproval of greyhound racing and its appalling effect upon the girlhood of our nation? It has come to our knowledge that girls of tender years are to be found at the racecourses betting on the various races. If such things are allowed to continue, what can be the outlook for the future of womanhood in our land? We are firmly of opinion that immediate and strong action should be taken to protect the youth of our country from these new and growing menaces, and we should like to take this opportunity of associating ourselves with every effort made to resist the opening of courses at the Crystal Palace (where so many young people assemble) and throughout our land.
Miss DORIS M. ROSE
Headquarters Secretary, The Girls’ Life Brigade
* * * * * * *

Elocution Lessons
6 June 1928
Sir, The subject of elocution in the theatre being closely akin to speaking in our churches, may I suggest some few useful rules?
(1) Read or speak so that a person sitting at two-thirds of the total distance of the space to be reached may hear.
(2) Stop at the mental pictures the words are to convey − the punctuation marks are mainly the concern of the grammarian and the printer, e.g., “There was a man of the Pharisees (slight pause) named Nicodemus.”
(3) The speaker should acquaint himself with the acoustic properties and peculiarities of the building.
(4) If we are young or not too old to learn, a visit to the Law Courts, there to hear our leading barristers, or to the theatre to hear Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, who tells us, I believe, that “our syllables should be like pistol shots,” would be helpful.
(5) Our pauses must be at the right pace, lest we say, for instance, “a man going to see (sea) his wife, desires the prayers of the congregation.”
I am, &c.,
REV. W. WILLIAMSON
* * * * * * *

Sleeping Out of Doors
21 July 1928
Sir, I was much interested in your article “Sleeping Out of Doors.” As I have myself slept out of doors every summer since 1912, perhaps some personal experience may be of use to others. My house is just ten miles from London Bridge, and, fortunately, my garden is not much overlooked, although I live in the centre of Bromley, in the High-street.
I first tried sleeping in a hammock, but found it draughty and difficult to turn over, so I soon took to sleeping on a canvas Army bed, which is easy to pack up if required. If the weather is fine, I always sleep under the stars, with no covering on my head, in a sleeping bag, with an extra rug if necessary. If the weather is cool or likely to rain, I sleep in a wooden shelter I had made facing south-east, just large enough to take the bed. I begin sleeping out when the night thermometer is about 47deg. to 50deg., that is, as a rule, early in May. This year I started on 20 April. Having once started, I go on through the summer till October, and have even slept out in my shelter on into November, when the temperature has fallen as low as 25deg. during the night. If it should be a wet night I stay indoors, but then usually feel the bedroom stuffy, although the windows are wide open, and not refreshed as I do outside. If it rains when I am in my bag, I do not mind, and have often slept out in a thunderstorm. This last week I slept six hours without waking and got up feeling fresh and keen like a schoolboy, though I am well past 60.
Friends say, what about midges and insects? Well, all I can say is that in 16 years I have only been bitten once by a mosquito. As to midges, they are very busy up till 10, but evidently go to bed before I do. As to other animals and insects, they have never worried me, and the secret, I believe, is that my bed stands 1ft. from the ground. I hate the cold weather, and look forward to the spring that I may sleep out; and to hear the “birds’ chorus” in the early morning in May is worth waking up for; it only lasts about 20 minutes, but must be heard to be appreciated. In June it dies down, and few birds sing after Midsummer Day.
When sleeping outdoors I never get a cold. I do not require so much time in bed, and wake refreshed in a way I never do indoors, with such an appetite for breakfast as no tonic can give. I enjoy the best of health, and wonder more people do not try it. During this summer weather I have never had any difficulty in keeping my rooms cool. My study has never been higher than 70deg., while outside in the shade my thermometer is 84deg. and 88deg., simply because
I shut my windows at 9 a.m. and pull down the blinds, and open them at 8 p.m. and leave them open all night. I bottle up the cool night air and shut out the air which is baked by the hot road and pavement. My study faces due west and has the sun streaming down nearly all day. Bedrooms may be kept cool in the same way.
Yours faithfully,
H. WYNNE THOMAS
The writer was a former president of the British Homeopathic Society.
* * * * * * *

Very Little Brain
23 August 1928
Sir, I must make my contribution to cricket history; the only one I am likely to make. In 1899 I was playing for Westminster v. Charterhouse, the match of the year. Somehow or other the batsman at the other end managed to get out before I did, and the next man came in, all a-tremble with nervousness. He hit his first ball straight up in the air, and called wildly for a run. We all ran — he, I, and the bowler. My partner got underneath the ball first, and in a spasm of excitement jumped up and hit it again as hard as he could. There was no appeal. He burst into tears, so to speak, and hurried back to the pavilion. Whether he would have run away to sea the next day, or gone to Africa and shot big game, we shall never know, for luckily he restored his self-respect a few hours later by bowling Charterhouse out and winning the match for us. But here, for your Cricket Correspondent, is a genuine case of “Out, obstructing the field.”
Yours, &c.,
A. A. MILNE
* * * * * * *

Moral of the Story
19 October 1928
Sir, It is a curious thing that when they speak of “immorality” in literature our moral reformers seem to have in mind only one department of misbehaviour. They complain that they see nothing but “sex” in the modern novel: and serious writers are entitled to complain there is too much “sex” in many of their sermons. For the majority of the population are not reading books about successful sexual aberration: they are reading books, and seeing plays, about successful murders, robberies, and embezzlements, about charming crooks and attractive burglars. And if there is any substance in the view that the literature of wrongdoing has a demoralizing effect upon popular conduct, we should be suffering now from an unprecedented wave of crime (which is not the case), and Mr. Edgar Wallace should be locked up (which would be a pity). Does the Home Secretary think that so many murders are good for “the little ones”? For my part, I would rather give my children a book which dealt with the difficulties of married life than a book which illustrated the simplicity of homicide. But I do not give them either. And I wish to assure the Home Secretary that my wife and I are capable of watching over our family’s reading without any Jixotic1 (#ulink_8dd16293-877e-5c8e-8891-5266ddcb03ed) assistance from him. But I fear that it is no use talking; and very soon, I suppose, we shall see him tilting fearlessly at John Stuart Mill.*
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A. P. HERBERT
* “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.”
J. S. MILL
1 (#ulink_59d7f7f5-97a0-574b-9b16-32c7febb7dc1) The decidedly authoritarian Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, was known as “Jix”.
* * * * * * *

In praise of bread
10 December 1928
Sir, Among the various ways in which agriculture is encouraged by the present Government of Italy is the institution of a yearly festival for the glorification of bread, with a hymn in its praise, to which Signor Mussolini has appended his name. The festival is held on April 13 and 14, and the “hymn” is one which surely no one but a countryman of St. Francis could have conceived. It is printed on cards which may be seen on many cottage walls in all parts of Italy. Below is a translation.
I am, Sir, yours very truly,
G.H. HALLAM
S. Antonio, Tivoli (Roma)
IN PRAISE OF BREAD
Italians!
Love Bread.
Heart of the home,
Perfume of the table,
Joy of the hearth.
Respect Bread,
Sweat of the brow,
Pride of labour,
Poem of sacrifice.
Honour Bread,
Glory of the fields,
Fragrance of the land,
Festival of life.
Do not waste Bread.
Wealth of your country,
The sweetest gift of God,
The most blessed reward of Human toil.
Mussolini
* * * * * * *

“Caddie!”
6 February 1929
Sir, This will never do! For five days in the week we avail ourselves of The Times as it so competently deals with the less important affairs of life: politics, domestic or foreign; the imminence, hopes, fears of a General Election; the arrivals or departures of great people; the steady depreciation of our scanty investments; another century or two by Hobbs; or a stupendous break by Smith. But on the sixth day The Times is exalted in our eyes; for then your “Golf Correspondent,” in a column of wisdom, humour, and unmatched literary charm, deals with the one real thing in life.
This week for the first time he has deeply shocked and disappointed us all. I am but a “rabbit.” I confess to a handicap of 24 (at times) and a compassionate heart (always). I cannot bear to see a fellow creature suffer, and it is for this reason among others that I rarely find myself able to inflict upon an opponent the anguish of defeat. To-day I suffer for a whole world of caddies, wounded in the house of their friend. They learn in a message almost sounding a note of disdain that the verb which signifies their full activity is “to carry.”
By what restriction of mind can anyone suppose that this is adequate?
Does not a caddy in truth take charge of our lives and control all our thoughts and actions while we are in his august company? He it is who comforts us in our time of sorrow, encourages us in moments of doubt, inspires us to that little added effort which, when crowned with rare success, brings a joy that nothing else can offer. It is he who with majestic gravity and indisputable authority hands to us the club that he thinks most fitted to our meagre power, as though it were not a rude mattock but indeed a royal sceptre. It is he who counsels us in time of crisis, urging that we should “run her up” or “loft her,” or “take a line a wee bit to the left, with a shade of slice.” Does he not enjoin us with magisterial right not to raise our head? Are we not most properly rebuked when our left knee sags, or our right elbow soars; or our body is too rigid while our eye goes roaming? Does he not count our strokes with remorseless and unpardonable accuracy, keeping all the while a watchful eye upon our opponent’s score?
Does he not speak of “our” honour, and is not his exhortation that “we” must win this hole? Does he not make us feel that some share of happiness, or of misery, will be his in our moment of victory or defeat? Does he not with most subtle but delicious flattery coax us to a belief that if only we had time to play a “bit oftener” we should reach the dignity of a single-figure handicap? Does he not hold aloft the flag as though it were indeed our standard, inspiring a reluctant ball at last to gain the hole? Does such a man do nothing but “carry” for us?
Of course, he does infinitely more. He “caddies” for us, bless him.
Yours,
BERKELEY MOYNIHAN
* * * * * * *

The Telephone Kiosk
22 May 1929
Sir, If this letter should meet the eye of the Postmaster-General, perhaps he will explain why he has christened the telephone box near the Royal Academy a telephone kiosk! It would not be easy to find a more ridiculous word.
Yours, etc.,
ALGERNON LAW
Replied on 23 May 1929
Sir, To Sir Algernon Law’s question anent the name “kiosk,” as applied to the street telephone box, the Postmaster-General could reply with official hauteur, as did Humpty Dumpty to Alice, “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.” Actually the word has travelled from Persia via France, gathering en route a veneer of Western civilization plus Post Office vermilion and shedding some of its Eastern trimmings, such as its veranda and balustrade. When the out-of-door telephone call station (open to the public day and night, Sundays and early-closing days) had to be given a name, “box” was already assigned to the first-born, the indoor public telephone. The resemblance to the Paris “kiosk” paper stall naturally suggested kiosk as the appropriate name.
Yours, etc.,
H. S. POWELL-JONES
Secretary, Telephone Development Association
Replied on 24 May 1929
Sir, Mr Powell-Jones seeks to defend the Postmaster-General for the adoption of this ridiculously inappropriate name for an out-of-door telephone station by the irrelevant argument that it is applied by Parisians to a newspaper-stall and that the word “box” had already been applied to the indoor public telephone. But “box” is not the only word in the English language. For instance, “stall” or “booth” or, better still, “hut.” We shall next have the General Post Office called the Yildiz Kiosk and the P.M.G.1 (#ulink_13da400f-58a9-5db4-a23a-0d199ce33175) the Padishah.
Yours, etc.,
ALGERNON LAW
1 (#ulink_977d6e4f-f99a-52d5-9054-cc92b24b253f) The Postmaster-General
Replied on 25 May 1929
Sir, In voicing a horror of foreign word immigrants that one would scarcely expect from his distinguished career at the Foreign Office, Sir Algernon Law is hardly consistent. In his short letter he uses at least 13 words of foreign derivation which at some time must have been as alien as “kiosk” is to-day. He does not even boggle at “telephone,” though one might well fancy that with its Hellenic ancestry it would feel itself more at home in an Oriental kiosk than in a Nordic hut, booth, stall or byre. After all, does it matter greatly what we name their local habitation so long as we are provided with public call facilities on a more adequate scale?
Yours, etc.,
H. S. POWELL-JONES
Secretary, Telephone Development Association
* * * * * * *

When London was Noisy
23 September 1929
Sir, What is all this noise about noise? Only a few genuine antiques like myself remember what London was like when there were no quiet motor cars running on wood or asphalt pavements, and when all the traffic was drawn with iron tires running on either stone setts or macadam. If you want to know what the noise was like in those days you have to go to the docks or to one of those stone paved streets in a factory town and hear the horse-drawn lorries.
In spite of the motor-omnibuses which make most of the noise, you can talk going along Piccadilly. When I was a boy you could not, because the crashing of the hooves and the rattling of the iron tires made hearing impossible. And in those times on a wet day the windows of the shops in Bond Street were splashed waist-high with mud squirted out of the puddles by the air compressed by the hollow hooves of the horses. People have forgotten all those unpleasantnesses.
And the congestion in the streets was just about as bad. A hansom for two took up more room on the road than the biggest Rolls-Royce. And a pair-horse carriage cumbered the earth more than does a motor-omnibus. The old horse-omnibuses took up nearly as much room as a motor-lorry and trailer. The shouting of drivers and cracking of whips and whistling for cabs made far more noise than does the mild tooting of motor horns to-day. Let us thank Heaven that we are quit of those bad old times.
Yours faithfully,
C. G. GREY
newspaper of record
1930–39
The constant Reader
12 January 1935
Sir, A letter in The Times of 4 January signed “A Forty Years’ Reader” tempts me to tell you what has led to my having read The Times for over 74 years. In October 1857, at Florence, my father called me into his study and said: “My boy, circumstances beyond my control oblige us to remain in Italy for some years. I want you to be an English boy and to grow into an Englishman. What will do that more than anything else and teach you all about England will be reading The Times. Every morning after breakfast you shall read me one or two paragraphs.” I was filled with pride, and the one or two soon became a goodly number.
In 1862, when my father died, I had no Times; but I managed to obtain a copy when a week old and to keep it for one day. It made a heavy inroad on my slender pocket money. Pride gave way to interest, and I read The Times from cover to cover till I started for England in 1868.

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