22 NOVEMBER 1940, Page 15

SIR, —The publication of the vitriolic criticism of Mr. Chamberlain in

The Spectator within a few days of his death has filled the many of us here who take this journal regularly with a nauseating disgust, which will be shared, I should think, by every reader. It is difficult to believe that The Spectator, which heretofore has enjoyed so high a reputation for its generosity, its restraint and its circumspection at all times, could have stooped to drag so enviable a reputation into the very gutter by choosing that moment of all moments to publish such a criticism. Whatever may be said of the criticism as such is not the point, but the moment chosen for its publication was without doubt as cruel and brutal as it was indecent and callous.—Yours

Miller's Hill, Thornton-le-Dale, Pickering, Yorks.