Wider still. .
From Bill Whelan Sir: Rod Liddle gets it wrong (Thought for the clay, 27 November). There are many more readers of The Spectator than the 65,000 who buy the magazine. Library copies are read by all sorts including those who simply cannot afford it. These patrons can be decidedly scruffy and it might tax Mr Liddle to have to whip them into shape. And surely most subscribers pass their copy around. My copy works its way around a government office in midtown Manhattan.
This informal circulation of already read copies goes way back. In 1922-1923 The Spectator carried an exchange on just this topic. Many of the letters are worth quoting. One from Papua in the Pacific reads: 'My copy is read by seven brother officers in this town, who are on my list for interchange of reading matter, and many are the interesting discussions which follow, consequent on the views expressed in your columns. When it has completed its circle in Port Moresby, I dispatch it to a planter in the Eastern Division, who in turn hands it around amongst his several neighbours. To the best of my knowledge, mine is the only copy which comes to this country, and you may be sure it is a very tattered journal by the time it is laid aside by the last reader. It probably ends its days in a native
village as cigarette paper, printed matter being highly prized by our people for that purpose.' Other correspondents told of pass-alongs at scattered military posts in East Africa and also a Moravian mission station on the border of Tibet. Remoteness bred an intense loyalty.
Bill Whelan
Port Washington, NY
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