23 JANUARY 1959, Page 20

BLOOD, TOIL, TEARS AND SWEAT'

SIR,—I have always thought that if any subconscious echoes were sounding for Sir Winston Churchill as he composed his famous '1 have nothing to offer you but blood, toil, tears and sweat,' they must haYe come not from Mr. Forster's savage little effort, but rather from Garibaldi's address to his followers before they set out from the Piazza of St. Peter in Rome during the summer of 1849.

'I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor provisions,' proclaimed Garibaldi, '1 offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death.' Admittedly there is some slight variation in the catalogue of discomforts. But both the circumstances,and the expression afford a pretty close paralle1.—Yours faithfully, I. MCD. G. STEWART

125 St. A tines Road East, St. Annes-on-Sea