[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:]
Sin,—Very many of the clergy will be grateful to you for opening your columns to the discussion of a subject which has given them much anxious thought. As your correspondent whose letter first appeared has shown so well, the future of probably a hundred thousand lads is now involved, and that number seems likely to be increased as new links are opened each year. No one is bold enough to say that caddying, even if the links are .closed on Sundays, is a good occupation for the training of boys who must look to manual labour for their support. Yet much money has been sunk in the making of golf grounds, and the money earned by the boys is very acceptable in many a household. The business of the secretaries and committees is to make their clubs successful, so that we can hardly expect them to take steps which would imperil the supply of cheap and efficient caddies. The best hope seems to me to lie in arousing the latent sense of responsibility among the players. Then they might be willing to pass a self-denying ordinance to the effect that all caddies should be enrolled; that they would endeavour to procure permanent employment for them after two or three years' service; and that more careful rules should be enforced than at present exist on the majority of links. I believe that very much might be done in this way to remove the reproach which now rests on our golf clubs of being places where the boys deteriorate. But, as your corre- spondent said so well, at present "all responsibility is frittered
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