25 JANUARY 1902, Page 32

[To VIE EDITOR OP TUE "SPECTATOR.")

S112,—Your correspondent, Miss M. Bramston, in the Spectator of January 18th, doubts yew-berries being poisonous, having eaten them as a ch.ld. I also ate many in the far-away days of childhood, but I was always careful to pick out the bitter, hard centre, which I had heard some villager say was poisonous. The yew-berries were singularly nasty, but we ate them with the joyful feeling of knowing they were forbidden fruit. They never did one any harm. Perhaps, as Mies Bramston says, because one was not tempted to eat too