13 NOVEMBER 1964, Page 15

PRAY SILENCE FOR CONCORD

SIR,—Quoodle's swipe at Anne Scott-James and Katharine Whitehorn (hooray for them both, say It) contains some perilous sentiments. He seems to think that mare-and-more and bigger-and-bigger and faster-and-faster are always and necessarily better. On that analogy, and since food is a good thing, per- haps we ought to aim at six meals a day, or even Continuous Nutrition.

It does not follow at all that, because faster travel has improved some aspects of life, it is therefore a good thing for man to travel faster than sound. There is always an optimum—whether in food, speed, illumination, industrialisation, mechanisa- tion—based partly on the physical make-up of human beings. Beyond this, the law of diminishing returns takes over; and sometimes disaster.

Ridge House, Kingston, Lewes, Sussex

DORIS DAVY