Letters to the Editor Cyprus Is Teaching a Profession ? The English Opium-Eater Wards of the State MPs' Salaries .1. Nationalised Prodigality No Restriclion .A.1I,. G /ci, (I:...

THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER Sliz,-It is a privilege for the biographer or editor of any nineteenth-century subject to be reviewed by Mr. Peter Quenuellcl. and I ami concerned that...

MPs' SALARIES SIR,-Mr. Henry Fairlic's logic gocs awry (May 18) in his use of Ml. Callaghan as an illustration of the need for a higher salary for MPs. Mr. Callaghan's work in...

IS T'EACIIING A PROFESSION? S Ity--, r. 1;'. 'laylor's thirty-six years ill Qduection, (Spcct(tor. May 18) entitle him to LesPect, and I have no donlbt that hc is right that...

WARDS OF THE STATE SIR,-Charlcs Cuitran clearly pre fers thl blunderbuss to thc rapier. but I wish he would Icarn to aimi it correctly. [he only dlam1lage Ilis last discharge...

Natural Piety IIIE 1-Luss DvcuI\'rID. By Philip LIrkin. (Malrvell Press. 6s.) Ir is hard to praise convincingly. The language of commcndation has been cheapened of recent...

Blackmore Takes His Bow I K ISLACKMOIOE: A BiographY. By Waldo Hilary Dunn. (Robert Hale, 21 s.) f O°SE who had assumIred that there was insuliicient material {r a I jfe of...

SHE, THE AccUSED. By Maurice Moiseiwitsch. (HeineIiemann, I'IS. 6d.) How girls go wrong; a trial scene; and a twist of popular IOPychology at the end, as it might be gin,...

I| 41BiROOMS HAVE- WINDOWS. By A. A. Fair. l . . . ., (Heinerna nnl, ''a 6d.) 'A. A. Fair is now known to be Erle Stanley Gardner.' SYs the dust-cover, not once but three...

Nothing in the Margin By LORD MEDWAY (CorPuts Christi College, Cambrid~c)| FCOR a month before the examhination, each post 1;li brought another form to sign. requests for...

As You L.wKT 1-r. By William Shakcspeare. (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park.) PLAYING Shakespeare in the open air in England inevitably raises thc more-thanmerely-academic...

Blood and Dreams LAST year a shift of policy cast the Sadlcr3 Wells Theatre Ballet out from its home bNP and, apart from a rare season in L ondofl' is now occupied in morc or...

Spoiling It ONI of the few, the very Icw, homiie-produced comedy programmc'. of' any valuCe Ca:lme to the end of its run this week; and although it's to be revived in June the...

DEATH IN THE LIMELIGiHr. By A. E. Martin. (Reinhardt, 1O05' XI Rather too tightly packed, rather too complicated tale ot a " si of murders, beginning with death on the stage...

Ti-HE CASE oi0 i'r EXi-RA MAN. By Christopiher Kc - . -,-C (Mfacdonald, 10s. Ud.) Sedate English piece, with the claSS t* scious Ludovic Travers solving a ImuILrCICI- or so in...

It's a Crime ITH 1 31CLONING D)RI1AM. By Evelyn Bcackman. (Eyre .3'J Spottiswoode, l(s. 6d.) As nasty a young woman as one cO" wish to mect--if one could wish to meet nasty...

A 1HEARSE IFOR IIwE Boss. By Alfred Eichler. (Hamllolll °0ol d Hammond, 1)s. 6d.) Stabbing by scissors in thle ulcerateO 'IC f of New York ad. mcn: an excellently...

IHE INNOCENr ONE. By James Reach. (Foulsham, 9s. 6d.) | must be a born story-teller, for his tale of a psychopath do"' to commit sex murders is flat-footed as to style and...

AND D)1EATI CAME Too. By Antlhony Gilbert. (Collins, ios .1G| Heroine runs into too many circumstantial traps, one after anfll)' for this tale of three murders to be easy to...

DEATH OF A BoOKSELLER. By B. J. Farmer. (Heinemanaflfl; 4 Roaringly improbable saga of the murder of a DU 'runner,' full of fascinating facts not only about police prOc/o I...

THE SCARLET FOUNTAINS. By George Milner. (Collins, lOsI It's a bold man that essays Ruritania, what with the late ' Hope and the live Mr. Ustinov to prompt comparisons. @ this...

'C4N UNDERSTAND that the decision whether a publication is p CeWsPaper or a periodical can cause some dispute; and it is DSSible that a jury, asked to decide into which...

I SUPPOSE TI]AT the only man l who has seen both the transcripts and the originals of the Casement diaries, and who is in a position to describe what he saw, is Mr. Peter...

A Spectator's Notebook IAlTlOuGH IT wAS on April 20 that five men met in London 4nd formed themselves into the executive committee of the PeoPle's League for the Dcfence of...

WH-Fl.N 11T TELE VISION 111LWas going through Parli amient.solime MPs expressed fears that cunning bUSilleSSm11en1 might insinuate their firms into programmes which wvere...

'III FIRSI TITST MATCH Of an 'Australian year' at [rent Bridge is always a111 important occasion in the cricket almanac and a nostalgic gathering of great cricketers of the...

TH EI M EAI)O\V P1INT Was there ever such CXpIlOitation as that of the ctickoo in its relationship with the mneadow pipit'? I.very season Ol tile uplatds I see once again this...

RAINLE SS DAYS 'I don't know about the ash before the oakl or the oak before the ash.' said the old man, 'but drought's drought and it's seriOluS for everybody. When yo0L don't...

Country Life By IAN NIALLI I r is long since I saw calling bilrLIS used to trap goldinches and linnets. I was a boy at the time, but a year' ol two ago a mnllil was...

Tang Dynasty jli Chincse emperors of the Tang dynasty i Ira In immense luxury and possessed arbi'WI Power. But the power was not unlimited. air its Shared with the civil...

GOOD SWEl . T-PEAS I he cultivation of show-quality sweet-peas is a thing for specialists, bUt one of the important thiings is to feed well with organic manure which, with...

Arm, Eros "HtRIAPS the easiest way to surmmaise Herbert MalicLiLIs ]5 0 Fro-s and Civilisation (RoLutledge i Kegan PalaUl, 25s.) is to Suggest that the 4uthor is ipplying...

City and Suburban Bi' JOHN 13F-ETJEMAN D R. Ds. W. ILOG:AN, trts Principal of London University, taktes mly namlie inl vainl inl his Annual~l Reprort. fie is orle 01' th(Jse...

BOOKS I nexhaustible BY GRAHAM HOUGI I r 1 kaICeidIOSCOIsCic personality of Coleridge is not. to everybody's taste. This seenins evident from recent reviews of the letters,...

I UNDER THE MAGNIFYING GLASS BY Our German Correspondent Bonn Hfi picture which the rest of the world had of the Germans Tin the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was that...

Portrait of the Week EVU.N three months ago the news that Molotov had lost his job as Soviet Foreign Minister would have created a sensation. When it came, last week, it caused...

NATIONALISED PRODIGALITY SIR,-As an old man who, in his time, has had a pretty wide experiencc of the nianagement end of business and industry. I miust confess that I find some...

The Rains Came .1. 1IIF RAINNIAKFR. By N. Richard Nash I Ma11till's.)---OrFF THE MAINLANP Rober-t Shaw. (Arts.) Ai NIttJI tII II .I LS1 ":s,}d 1; AMERICAN plays arc always...

NO RES'TRICT'IION SI,-I a1ll of thc opinion thatl Phaws (May 25) hils inradvertentlIy hIcnLT ICd ast aby SOIlC Very UndCSirable salIesmansh ip on thc part of t hc retailer in...

Contemporary Arts Pacific Idyll lA('li Drs r)i:SI'INw, (Odcoii. Nilarl c Arch)----IT'S (GRI Al 10 II1 YOUNG! ( Ralto. )---Tll NIAVIAZICK Q) I1N. (CGitli lolt. 1- I yma rkc.)...

Siim,-How interesting to rcad an Ml' pr o- posing a non-contributory pCnsions schcmnC for MPs so soon after Parliament has voted to increase the contribUtiOnS Of tcachers to...

Political Commentary BY HENRY FAIRLIE AT the moment of writing, the draft of the Labour Party's A statement of policy on the rights of the individual in society is being...

This Strange Madness BY ROGER LLOYD T iHE clerk in the railway control room who said the other day, 'Anyone who takes an interest in a job like mine must be barmy,' probably...

New Novels TimE least dipped-into of books are those said to be good for that purpose. The most dipped-into are novels. Every weekday thousands of people in bookshops and...

COMPANY NOTES BY CUSTOS I!L-INFORMED gossip about dearer money caused a sharp setback in the gilt-edJ market this week, but some recovery being made as I write. The weakness...

B.P. AND MIDDLE EAST OIL By NICHOLAS DAVEN PORT I WAS very surprised to hear the Prime Minister linking up our economic survival with oil and politics in the Middle East. This...

Fathers and Brethren BY BERNARD FERGUSSON IT is a bromide, in Scotland, to say that the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which meets every year in the latter half...

A Legal Recession BY JULIAN LESLIE HE Bar has traditionally provided the press with ample | material for weaving golden fantasies. Legends are carefully built up around the...

lago and Others 00 Harroviani, my clear!' was how Sir Alan Herbert's | Topsy once described lago. This much over-simplified verdict oin a character wvhomi Bradley once...

WHO'S IN CHARGE? HE Government is apparently determined to provoke an economic crisis. That seems to be the only explana. tion for the extraordinarily inept speeches which have...

BRITAIN AND THE MIDDLE EAST A RECENTLY published study by M. Elie Kedourie* of British AXaction in the Mid dle East between 1914 and 1921 throws a good deal of light oln the...

OLD ARGUMENTS Ti1 Prime Minister's Norwich speech did not add anything to the Government's case for its policy of repression in Cyprus. Sir Anthony brought out the old argument...

Invisible Column I I PI V GERMAN Fll 1 C M INJ1 111 S '.-CON WLORL I WR B . Gti [ZLRMAN FIrFTH COLUMIN IN TlliESECOND WORLD WAR. By L. de II I Joog. (Routledge and Kegan...

Prosperity and the Working Class BY GEOFFREY GORER O NE of the main contrasts between Britain and the United States is that in Britain nearly all the wageI earners, somewhat...

Women and Children First I A NIGIIr TO REMEMBER. By Walter Lord. (Longmans, 16s.) All THE loss of the Titanic is a haunting story which has bect I many times before in books,...