23 JANUARY 1988, page 20

Sir: One Is Rarely Surprised These Days To See Public

reviling of the recently dead, but John Sweeney's attack on the late Michael Horton (16 January) surely lacks in logic as well as taste. It can hardly be as an adulterer that......

Sir: Readers Will Examine Barbara Smok- Er's Premises...

January): a) that the change from fertilised egg to late foetus is fundamental enough to justify quite different treatment; b) that a cluster of undifferentiated cells develops......

Letters Being And Unbeing

Sir: In your issue of 2 January, I read a letter from a Barbara Smoker, President of the Secular Society. After considerable waffle, she adum- brated a proposition by which, as......

Passchendaele

Sir: I greeted Gavin Stamp's article on war graves (The silent witnesses', November 7) with great sadness but also pleasure at the recognition of these moving and often......

First White Woman

Sir: Nicholas Coleridge has my sympathy and understanding (Diary, 7 November) in trying to deal with travel writers in the absence of the distinguished travel editor and......

Michael Horton

Sir: John Sweeney's article about my pre- decessor Mike Horton (`Speaking ill of the dead', 16 January) reflected little credit on your publication. The fine traditions of The......