22 APRIL 1949, page 5

Calling Up Ghosts Is A Diversion That Has Its Melancholy

side. Sitting a day or two ago in the corner of the smoking-room of the club I have frequented for the last twenty years, and rarely get to now, I joined with one other survivor......

Rumours From Russia

T HE rumours about the possibility of the lifting of the blockade in Berlin are interesting—and as yet no more than that. They may have gained currency because the event......

* * * *

Sir Bernard Pares was the ablest, and on the whole the wisest, of British authorities on Russia—more the old Russia than the new. He first went there in 1898—five years before......

That There Exists A Society Devoted To The Collection Of

match-box labels is inspiring news. But who on earth invented the appalling hybrid " phillumenists " which the members have chosen as a name for themselves ? Phil—pure Greek ;......

" Advocates Of A Fixed Easter," Writes The Times, " Will

be study- ing precedents and are likely to look with a particularly favourable eye on the third week of April." Actually advocates of a fixed Easter, of whom I am emphatically......

* * * *

The death of Mr. Ashley Anthony Froude carries the mind back to distant controversies, one ecclesiastical, through his uncle Richard Hurrell Froude, one literary, through his......

A Spectator's Notebook

W HAT the purpose of the Peace Conference now in session in Paris is I have never quite understood. Peace exists, and no one, so far as I know, proposes to break it. But the......