Considering the size of the taxes we pay and the
regularity with which (on the whole) we pay them, the manner in which the Com- missioners of Inland Revenue acknowledge their receipt always strikes me as singularly ungracious. "RECEIVED the above payment" not only omits the customary "with thanks," which even the black- smith, who can hardly write, takes the trouble to put on his receipts, hut the capital letters hint at feelings of surprise and relief which, though no doubt often appropriate to the occasion, ought really to be suppressed in the interests of good manners. I know the Treasury mploys a Public Relations Officer, because he wrote me several
extraordinarily silly letters about something I wrote in this Notebook last year. Perhaps he would explain why common courtesy appears to be incompatible with tax-collecting ? * * * *
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