17 OCTOBER 1947, Page 4

* * * * I have been looking a little

further (metaphorically) into the dental vagaries of the islanders of Lewis. Their historic capacity to dis- pense with a dentist's attention is, I am assured, due to the fact that they have so long sustained themselves on a diet of sheep, whose bones they gnawed—an unattractive habit, but perhaps pardonable in the seclusion of Lewis—to the great advantage of their teeth and gums. I shall some day, not at present, compose a limerick on this subject, in which Lewis will rhyme with chew his, and vagaries (not, quite legitimately) with caries. I may before that have received some expostulations from the Member for the Western