24 AUGUST 1991, Page 21

Sir: Mr Michael Lewis, like many another foreigner before him,

has got it all wrong in his remarks about the British character. What he mistakes for rudeness is in fact apprehension at the prospect of meeting someone from a country where there were 23,000 murders last year and where ten per cent of the population is engaged in vexa- tious litigation in order to get quite a lot for nothing. As for that famed American politeness to what does it amount other than to that sac- charine 'Have a nice day now, do you hear,' uttered in the hope of making another of those quick bucks by which, and only by which, they set such great store?

Dr W.B. Hepburn

Rushmere, Juniper Place, Shalford, Guildford, Surrey