GOATS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I entirely agree and sympathize with your writer "A. T." in a recent issue "Virgil and the Goats." If he should wish to see the goat (and his name is legion) at his best—or worst—he should visit the Island of Malta. There his genus has infected a population for so many cen- turies that the present people are practically immune from "Malta Fever." Until the Naval and Military Authorities forbade the consumption of goat's milk, many thousands of lives were permanently damaged in the army and navy : with a large percentage of deaths.
There his diet, seemingly, consists of paper, brown or white, and old cigar or cigarette ends. He makes all the streets filthy and the cries of his vendor : " Haleep, Haleep " (milk), coupled with the jangle of his bells, add to the infernal caco- phony of the church bells, which starts and stops at odd moments. No wonder the ancients took the goat as a symbol of the Evil One, in witchcraft and demonology.—! am,
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