T HERE are two ways of looking at sexual immorality. One is to regard all illicit intercourse as a crime; the other is to regard it as a sin but not as something which concerns...

SPECTATOR

I HE Wint/Calvocoressi axis has done a great deal to promote a saner attitude to Middle East problems in this country; and we are glad to provide a platform for the writers'...

By U. W. KITZINGER &MA T HE German electoral law is an attempt to T get the best of all possible worlds : and in large measure it succeeds. It was designed to meet the chief...

N TROSPECTIVE Congressmen hastily smothered T the cries of alarm that went up when the southern State of Kerala chose a Communist government in the last election. Rather than...

LAst week's announcement from Russia on the uncom- fortable subject of inter- continental missiles does not seem to have had a very bene- ficial effect on the Great Powers. The...

To Hell or Blackpool 'MIND your backs, please, mind your backs.' In a pet already (the handle of my suitcase had just fallen off), I determined not to mind my back at so...

Priestley v. Pinfold

former colleagues by saying that 'staffs in all departments, including the Foreign Office, . . . should be gradually but ruthlessly cut.' To disagree with such an expert as Sir...

a successor worthy to restore the great Owen Seaman tradition. I was surprised to hear that Mr. Randolph Churchill had already been un- of ficially sounded; apparently it was...

of Associated Press at one juncture; 'I repeat, lies!' To which the Daily Express reporter added: 'Give us the facts or send your fifty thousand information officers home to...

AMONG THE SUBJECTS on the agenda for the next Cabinet meeting, I am interested to hear, is the future of Punch. Some Ministers feel, under- standably, that Punch after Mug-...

the News Chronicle, is typical. A fortnight ago the Chronicle wanted to print a picture of the three steel towers which have been going up this summer alongside the Great North...

that the dispatch of Molotov to Mongolia is an improvement on Stalin's methods of dealing with opponents. But Stalin appointed Kamenev as an Ambassador—to Rome, at that—only to...

By N. S. HOLMES N INE years ago I was prematurely retired; I was an Indian Army infantryman, a battalion commander for my last two years, and I was nearly thirty-six. Over a...

By GUY WINT and PETER CALVOCORESSI Between the Russian deal with Egypt two years ago and the deal with Syria today lies a chain reaction. The links are plain—the rebuff to Egypt...

By LESLIE READE I is theoretically possible, I discovered; to buy 'copies of London Transport's posters; and it was in search of the series which includes the tale of 'old...

BEA PLACE £5,000,000 order for six Comets. Daily Mail. August 31. BEA HAS ordered six Comet 4B jet airliners. The latest version of the Comet, costing about Et million.. . ....

By MONTGOMERY HYDE, MP E VIDENCE of identity in criminal proceedings may take one or more of several recognised forms: the one with which I am here con- cerned is where the...

By JOHN BETJEMAN M Y wife went recently to give a lantern lecture in what she thought was a church hall. She Went to the church and there was no church hall. She asked...

By STRIX WAS once required to write an essay on I Browning's idiotic slogan : GroW old along with me; The best is yet to be. I cannot, mercifully, remember what I wrote, but...

BY LESLIE ADRIAN T HE United States Army has been carrying out an investigation to decide whether the Ameri- can Serviceman's uniform will be of pure-wool fabric or of one of...

SEPTEMBER 8, 1832 A NEW steam-coach, built by Messrs. Ogle and Summers, passed through Oxford on Monday; it had travelled with safety from Southampton. Its rate of speed is...

Seems to me that Dr. Piney rolls three fal- lacies into one, i.e., the two varieties of ignoratio elenclri known as argumentant ad ignorantiam and argumentum ad hominem...

The Ghana Deportations The Liberal Creed Fenner Brock way, MP Christopher Hollis Cigarettes and Lung Cancer Hans Keller The BBC's Russian Service G. If: Gretton Cri de...

Sig,—It broke my heart to see a woman with the French name of Crevecceur begin a recipe with the very un-French 'melt one ounce of margarine,' and to see Leslie Adrian's...

Euston 3221

Sia,—You ask why some of us who have stood for personal liberties have not protested against the de- portations in Ghana. The answer is that Ghana is now independent and as...

Sia,—I agree with much of what Professor Scton- Watson says. I would, however, like to comment on one or two of the impressions which he seems to have formed. I nowhere...

SIR,—Your contributor Mr. Levin expresses himself mystified at the prolonged survival of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and adds a sneering comment to the effect that its...

review, by Geoffrey Barraclough, of Alexander Dallin's German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 which contains the follow- ing sentence : 'No doubt most of us feel a morbid fascination...

SIR,—The weekly cut and thrust of Messrs. Bardsley and Glover has caused me no little amusement. Lest Mr. Bardsley should think that A. S. B. Glover is a pseudonym for the...

study of the three White Papers dealing with the functions, areas and status, and the finance of local government, I am impressed by the fact that in none of these is any...

SIR,-1 am writing the life of the late Wyndham Lewis. I should be most grateful for the loan of letters and also for personal recollections. Needless to say, all care will be...

well he may be. Where are all the houses that were to be made available for letting? This is really rather important to those of us who have received notices to quit. At the end...

SIR,—Don't let them silence Taper. He is one of the few live and refreshing spirits in contemporary journalism. Taper is very unkind at times, I admit. There are occasions when...

and we apologise for the typing mistake on our postcard inviting you to our Conference. He can hardly blame the Liberal Party, however, for a typist's error. Regrettable though...

Sin,—Replying to Mr. Richard Findlater's criticisms that 'top people' in the entertainment industry are overpaid, Mr. Jack Hawkins appears to suggest that he was paid a fee in...

am engaged on a doctoral dissertation for the University of London on Richard Holt Hutton, editor of the Spectator from 1861 to 1897. I would very much appreciate hearing from...

THE CELLO CONCERTO was less successful, Here the fault lay with the soloist, Janos Starker, who neither ,showed any sense of Elgarian phrase nor cast new light on the music with...

IT'S a strange thought that tele- vision should at this stage be so willing a tool in the propagation of all that's dreariest and phoniest about the cinema. Alarmingly 0 0 0...

Ballet at Edinburgh DRAMATIC critics have com- plained that some manage- ments treat the Festival more and more as an occasion for trying out plays which are—unless unspeak-...

The Witches of Salem. (Academy.) —The Wanton Countess. (Paris Pullman.)—Full of Life. (Lon- don Pavilion.) , The Witches of Salem is grim and brilliant; so brilliant you almost...

This being so, what the festival could do is serve it with something a little out of the ordinary. The cream of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with Klemperer and Jochum,...

`Not as Black Douglas, bannered, trumpeted, Who hacked for the tasked heart flung to the enemy, Letting the whole air flow breakneck with blood Till he fell astride that...

The Well-Turned Poet By THOM GUNN T HERE is no doubt that Robert Graves is one of the most respected and influential of living English poets. The very political unconcern and...

Main. By Glorney Bolton. (Allen and Unwin, 18s.) `THROW that butt away,' he said, getting into the taxi. The driver obeyed without a word, although he did not know who was...

SUMMARISED, the story is barely credible. A de- pressed, harassed-looking woman came to an Augusta, Ga., clinic for psychiatric treatment, Complaining of headaches. The...

Lloyd George's Ambulance Wagon: Being the Memoirs of William J. Braithwaite, 1911- 1912. Edited with an introduction by Sir Henry Bunbury, KCB, and with a commen- tary by...

IT is a truism that romantic love, loVe born all of a piece, not growing with knowledge but, in a single mystical-seeming moment, filling in all the gaps of two people's lives,...

A Book of Stories. By. Jean Stafford, John Cheever, Daniel Fuchs, William Maxwell. (Gollancz, 16s.) ONE way to classify short stories is into those that begin, 'The business...

a testimonial for one of his holidays. They like the agent but loathed the holiday, so they compromise by leaving hints for the discerning. Limit 100 words. Prize: six guineas....

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 392 Report by Colin Prestige Dickens in Nicholas Nickleby having introduced 'The United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and...

ACROSS 1 Do both our pens write this word? (13) 9 Dairy product award won by Blossom (9). 10 'Under yonder — tree, single on the greens- ward' (Meredith) (5). 11...

Times have changed since my boyhood, when an encounter with a 'steam' mill was something to be talked about. Threshing mills were designed by men With the striking speechless of...

BY G. E. BEHARRELL Chairman of the International Synthetic Rubber Co. Ltd. O UR war-time experiences sharply underlined the vital importance of rubber in our every- day...

By IAN NIALL WALKING with the rain in one's face can be not unpleasant if one hasn't far to go, if every now and then the sun breaks out, and a bird sings. Some People get a...

'It cures dog fits an' convulsions. Anythin' you like, in fact. My ole dad swore by it an' is dad afore 'irn. If you was to take a drop after you'd 'ad beer nobody'd guess from...

One can't keep count of jackdaws about the chim- ney pots, although they are obviously fewer in number than they were, but the complete absence of, starlings from places where...

By PHILIDOR No. 118 - Specially contributed by E. A. WIRTANEN (Helsinki) BLACK (9 men) WHITE (10 men) ss4irrr, to play and mate in two moves: solution next week. Solution to...