ALLEGED VANDALISM AT OXFORD [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—The alarm of your Oxford correspondent about the Roebuck Hotel front is needless. The Woolworth plan for reconstruction has been submitted and approved by judges whose first object was to prevent disfigurements ; it harmonizes with the proposed new facade of an adjacent building, and is, in most people's opinion, quite as pleasing to the eye as the old front was. Nobody, I believe, ever suspected that the Roebuck windows were among the chief glories of Oxford —till it was proposed to put something else in their place. Your correspondent asserts that " a like fate hangS over other ancient and delightful buildings, ' and yet God has not said a word.' " The reason for this reticence (if one may suggest it without profanity) would seem to be that there was nothing to talk about. I do not know to what " ancient and delightful buildings " your correspondent refers. None, as far as I have heard, are at present menaced. Probably the origin of his statement was a rumour about some interference with " Bishop King's Palace " in St. Aldate's. Such a rumour did recently find its way into the local Press. It was quite basele-;3.– I am, Sir, &c., A MEMBER OF THE OXFORD CORPORATION.
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