Letters to the Editor
Government by Old Etonians R. W. Wood, W. E. Kaye Out of the East and the Way Back R. P. S. Walker Oxford Roads J. W. Brown Supply and Demand Senator 0. Sheehy Skeffington Hold Tightly Octogenarian, K. C. Craig The Middle East Mark Goulden, H. Pinner The Versailles Affair Prof. Antony Flew Hen and PEN Daniel George The American Language Raven I. McDavid, Jr.
Eleven Minus Lord Hai!sham Points from Letters E. F. G. Haig and others
GOVERNMENT BY OLD ETONIANS
SIR,—During the week following the publication of my first letter in the Spectator, I was bombarded with letters (mostly anonymous) postmarked from towns and cities in which well-known universities and public schools are situated. Every one of those letters was abusive, and, in some cases, disgustingly, abusive —for, believe it or not, some of them were actually written on toilet paper.
Vulgar claims to social distinction, birth and breeding, and association with a university or public school, mingled with personal abuse, revealed to me that beneath a wafer-thin vecner may lurk all the characteristics of the lout and the bully. The anonymous letters I have destroyed, but I have retained three toilet-paper specimens which are signed, though no addresses are given. The postmark is Marlborough and all arrived in one envelope. If you, Sir, would care to inspect these letters I will post them to you immediately.
However, for the information of those who called me a 'shambling ape,' a baboon,' a 'gorilla with a warped mind,' I would like to mention that I am an amateur landscape painter, that my pictures have won prizes in exhibitions, that I am the author of one pocket novel, at least twelve short stories, twenty to thirty articles on astronomy, a book on the English Turf (all published) and a volume of poems (almost ready for publication). So much for my simian nature.
Reading the letter of your correspondent, Miss Daphne Hereward, after the above experience was like meeting a breath of clean sweet air blowing down from some unspoilt upland. I do not agree with all she writes, neither does she with me—but how differently she disagrees! It may be that in actual fact her views are complementary to mine rather than contradictory to them. I hope this lady will accept a copy of my book of poems when it is issued. In any case, I would like to -take this oppor- tunity of thanking her for her kindness and courtesy. 1 stand by the views I expressed in my first letter because I do not feel they have even been seriously challenged.—Yours faithfully,
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