Unexplained slaughter
Sir: Every time I cross Hyde Park Corner on foot I am affronted by a biblical text so offensively inappropriate that one can comprehend neither its choice, even 60 years ago, nor its maintenance ever since. It stares .you in the face from the monu- ment erected to the 'glorious heroes of the Machine Gun Corps who fell in the Great War'. And it reads:
Saul hath slain his thousands But David his tens of thousands.
Reeking with primitive pride in slaughter it is no less than an insult to the spirit of the men of 1914-18 as well as a disgrace to us allowing it to remain there. Yet, even more baffling, none of the half dozen editors on whom I tried the gist of this letter, saw fit to lend a hand in getting it removed which, in fact, would take anyone equipped with a brush, a tiny pot of whitish paint and a minimum of civic courage, less than two minutes.
J. H. Huizinga
43 Wilton Crescent, London SW1
Previous page
