10 JANUARY 1947, Page 16

SIR,—I enjoyed your general knowledge competition, and it is with

great regret that I have to take you to task for having murdered the two ministers whose defenestration opened the tragedy of the Thirty Years War. In fact the two gentlemen, Count William Slavata and Jaroslav Martinitz, did not lose their life as the result of their unfortunate experience, a fact which was widely hailed as a miracle, but was simply due to the opportune presence of a heap of dung at the spot where the two men landed.—Yours