e important article by an official of the pplementary Benefits Commission ich we published in our issue of 6 ptember, under the title 'The truth ut the welfare rackets', has...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Service on the Resurrection Day, The Scriptures say, Body and soul to everyone's surprise Together rise, The soul when it appears before the Throne Will be...

The Southern stigma AUBERON WAUGH Charleston, South Carolina—The old Con- federacy has a strikingly better record than the Northern states where the recent history of civil...

Tory men, Whig measures MARC ULLMANN Paris—In the absence of a powerful parliamentary opposition and an organised democratic force on the left, one man has become the...

Nlicawbers all MURRAY KEMPTON l ington — Mr Nixon remains a mystery. who used to wonder about the secret his sorrow now must puzzle over the t of his joy. His pleasure in his...

Papa Doc beside the Nile MILES COPELAND Miles Copeland, author of `The Game of Nations', has been professionally involved with the present Egyptian government since its...

Each year, as the party conferences approach, groups of local political activists concoct resolutions on the issues which happen to be exercising them. These resolu- tions...

Living without television CHRISTOPHER BOOKER We have been hearing a great deal in recent days about the particular troubles of one part of the television industry. But is not...

The gospel according to Peter C. NORTHCOTE PARKINSON :•er's Principle has been given to the world ol powerful publicity and many students politics have been predictably...

From the 'Spectator', 25 September /869— Our paupers are really taking a high-handed line with their superiors in the workhouse. They are beginning to claim, it seems, the right...

Free for all? BILL GRUNDY Give-away equals chuck-away. This is not so much an equation, more an identity, which the mathematical among you will know is an equation true for...

Liberal hour GEORGE SCOTT Michael Winstanley was arguing last against Tv coverage of party con- rences. One of his reasons was that an erdose of politics leads to public...

IN NI I I ectator The Spectator Ltd., 99 Gower Street, London W.C.1 Please supply the Spectator for a year (52 issues) Cheque enclosed Ei NAME ADDRESS.. ...... Invoice me...

Small print LESLIE ADRIAN One and a half cheers for the Law Com- missions. Last week they recommended the banning of exclusion clauses from contracts for the sale of goods to...

God's country? DENIS BROGAN Washington—I had been out of the United States for fourteen months when the topless towers of Manhattan last week .appeared faintly out of heavy...

TONY TANNER Ezra Pound is now living in Venice. It seems the most appropriate habitation for the man who once said, 'Have I a country at all?' and whose restlessness prompted...

OLIVER WARNER Darwin and the Beagle by Alan Moore- head (Hamish Hamilton 75s) This chocolate-cream of a book developed, we are told, from what was originally a film treatment....

BRIAN CROZIER Rhodesia and Independence Kenneth Young (Dent 65s) Power is what you can get away with. In the confrontation between Ian Smith and Harold Wilson, Smith is the...

HENRY TUBE The Joke Milan Kundera translated by David Hamblyn and Oliver Stallybrass (Macdonald 35s) The peculiar sense of shock and sadness felt in the West when the Russians...

Bear and others Maurice CAPITANCHIK The Lemon Mohammed Mrabet translated by Paul Bowles (Peter Owen 35s) 4re You Trying to Annoy Me? Katherine Blake (Macmillan 30s) The Lolly...

DAVID KNOWLES England 1100-1640 G. R. Elton (Sources of History Hodder and Stoughton 42s) Professor Elton's output is so large and varied that a reader is hard put to keep up...

STUART - HOOD The Other Side Alfred Kubin (Gollancz 42s! If you can demonstrate to the officials of the British Museum Reading Room the serious- ness of your intentions and the...

MICHAEL BOBBIE oAnitnals and Maps Wilma George (Seeker and Warburg 63s) Porkespicks and pronghorns, manticora and mirmicaleon, cuscus and colugos (not to mention the fluffy...

PENELOPE HOUSTON The Battle of Britain seems during the past week to have become the absolutely in- escapable headline subject, edging its way up towards Ulster, Edward...

Epic strains CHARLES REID The mounting at Covent Garden of the complete Trojans of Berlioz, comprising the introductory Prise de Troie and Les Troyens a Carthage, the whole...

Ends and means HILARY SPURLING K. D. Dufford . . (Lamda Theatre Club) The Magistrate (Cambridge) So What About Love? (Criterion) Anyone still interested in the theatre, and...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT It was premature of me in my last review of the Pergamon Press roundabout to say that Mr Robert Maxwell was down and out. Clearly he will never be down and...

Merchant bankers' league JOHN BULL l y piece last week on the clearing banks a s written before the announcement of 2her lending rates. I must therefore iehtly revise my...

From D. A. N. Jones, A. E. Lewis, Mrs I. M. Wight, C. W. Pearson, Frank MacDermot, Aryeh H. Samuel, K. W. Nicholls, G.ltyd Lewis, Dr Billy J. Dudley, William Saunders, Tibor...

Sir: I have just read your leading artic (6 September) and find it difficult to unde stand how a newspaper of liberal a radical sympathies such as yours can Possibly advocate a...

Sir: I think the article on 'The truth about the welfare rackets' (6 September) lost a considerable amount of its impact because the author seems to have lost the ability to...

Sir: The Liberal party conference, with all the frustrations attendant on having spent years in the political wilderness, has pre- tended yet again that it can win influence if...

Sir: Mr Miles Copeland III has written most courteously in defence of his father's book (Letters, 13 September). His aspe . sions upon my accuracy are, however, unfounded. I...

Sir: Mr Walder (6 September) says that the British 'got themselves off the hook' in 1921. But did they? The only effective way to do so would have been to aquiesce in the...

Sir: Perhaps Peter Enahoro (Peter Pan) be- lieves (30 August) his own myths. But even assuming what he says is true and that 'the leaders on both sides would welcome a...

Sir: In the 30 August issue of the SPECTATOR, there appeared a review of A History of English Law by Pollock and Maitland. For this we thank you. but feel that we would have...

Sir: Miss Cindy Scott (Letters, 23 August) and her friends may well be very weary of being asked inconvenient questions, but we unbelievers are none the less entitled to go on...

On the squat JOHN WELLS It looked as if they were going to be there for ever. Capturing the front pages of the national press and long minutes of the tele- vision news,...

PHILIDOR H. W. Bettmann (Good Companions, 1921). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 457 (Issler): Kt-B3, threat Q-Q5. 1 P-K5; 2 Kt-K2...

No. 572: Alliterations Set by E. 0. Parrott: Most people know the alliterative poem which begins: `An Austrian army awfully arrayed Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade'....

Across 1 Night-cap for the lecturer? Her husband must have needed one! (6) 4 Shows the way to get with dispatch (8) 10 Citrous fruits to have fun and music with (7) 11 TT...