Letters to the Editor
The Despised Doris Davy, Julian Howell Smith,
William F. Pickard, Malcolm Murray-Brown Crisis in Medicine
R. Leather, M.D.
Comprehensive Education R. A. Cooper Rats and Poison Joseph Solomon The Private Nesvntan C. Stephen Dessain Cyprus 11. Maurice Painter Problem People Evan Griffiths A Name for Southern Ireland Frank MacDermot Herod J. W. Westwood Conscience and Constituents D. A. Schofield THE DESPISED Sul,--1 was shocked by Pharos's comment on the murder of Lieut. Moorbouse, and his reference to —and partial justification of—Mr. Jesman's letter.
Soldiers of all nations sing ribald versions of everybody's national anthems, including their own; it was the Americans—now so popular in the Middle East—who invented Wogs, Dagoes and Wops (also Limeys—us). It may well be that `few Egyptian officers were welcomed at the Gezira and Maadi Clubs,' but surely the point of a club is that it is a club, not an hotel. A great deal, of unrealistic non- sense is talked about the 'exclusiveness' of clubs. I do. not belong to any, but I assume their raison &etre is to cater for a group of people with common backgrounds, interests and mentalities. All these may be quite dotty, but that does not invalidate the argu- ment: lunatics, Blimps, snail-watchers and philatelists , have their rights like the rest of us. Did Pharos never belong to a literary or philoSophical clUb? And did it elect footballers and boxers to membership? No? How offensively highbrow I
I do not defend the bad manners and silliness of the soldiers of any occupying army, but .I fail to sec how it can be equated with (or used as any kind of excuse for) cold-blooded murder by gangs of irregu- lars armed by the State.
, The immense tenderness displayed for the neurotic touchiness and 'national pride' of foreigners con- trasts oddly with the lofty snubs and reproofs administered of late by such as Pharos to equivalent emotions in this country. We too; have a population Consisting mainly of ordinary people, with ordinary primitive emotions, but ,I have yet to hear of a gang of English irregulars suffocating an Egyptian boy in a steel boxi—Yours faithfully, DORIS DAVY Penny Hill, A mberley, .Sussex
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