12 FEBRUARY 1983, Page 18

Poor Service

Sir: Your correspondent Nicholas von Hoffman commits the routine American er- ror of believing (29 January) that all per- sons born between the Rio Grande and the North Pole are US citizens. Robert Service may indeed have been a dreadful poet, but dammit, he was a dreadful Canadian poet, and as such not to be claimed for his own by any mere Yankee.

David Fleming

6 Pembroke Square, London W8