26 JUNE 1947, Page 16

SUICIDE AND INSANITY

Sra,—In your issue of June 13th Janus, in connection with the con- sidered and deliberate suicide of a member of Parliament, asks: "Who will take it on him to say she was wrong?" Nor does he wait for an answer. This is a somewhat airy dismissal of a deep philosophical and moral question. The consensus of opinion, pagan and Christian, to state the case pt its lowest, has for some thousands of years denied man's absolute right of self-destruction. Might I remind Janus of his duty to look both ways? If suicide is to be justified as "the wiser thing" by mere personal, even if unclouded, judgement, may not a similar plea be put forward to justify the " wise " elimination of the unsuitable, the unwanted, the intractable in the Belsens and Dachaus of the not too

distant future?—Yours faithfully, F. HARVEY. St. Columba's High School, Greenock.

Sta,—Would not any sensitive reader of the Gospels, of whatever creed, wonder what would be Christ's own comment upon. the letter of Violet

Hammersley, and upon the curiously named " Christian " code of morality ON THE AIR

to which she refers?—Your faithfully, FRANCES BELLERBY. Upton Cross, Cornwall.