BRITISH SPAS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—I trust
you will allow me, as one who knows Switzer- land and the Swiss intimately, and who has much reason for gratitude to both the country and the people, to reply to what I consider the very unfair attack of Mr. Peter Blundell in the letter you published on September 24th. I write with the authority of considerable first-hand knowledge. I have acted as English Chaplain at Pontresina (six times), Ander- mitt, Engelberg, Miirren, Caux. I have spent happy holidays at other places—e.g., Brunnen, Zermatt, Kandersteg, Riffelalp, Oberhofen, Wengen. I have stayed in such well-known tourist resorts as Lausanne, Interlaken, Lucerne ; Basle, Zurich, Berne, Geneva, Thun, these, too, I know.
Without exception my family and I have met with extreme kindness and attention from the proprietors and managers of the hotels ; on one or two occasions, coming as they did from less healthy old cities, members of my family were quickly restored to health under the unsparing care of the hotel officials. We have found, invariably, the hotel management excellent, the sanitary arrangements quite up to date. We have come to look upon such hotel proprietors as the Gredigs of Pontresina, the Leilers of the Zermatt district, the Fass- binds of Brunnen, as real personal friends.
As to " influenza of a peculiarly deadly type," none of us has ever met it in Switzerland ; we have encountered it in England ! But I imagine influenza is endemic in a great many countries, and I know not what European country can claim exemption. As to " doctors," I have frequently heard from English medical authorities that the science and practice of medicine have reached an extremely high standard in Switzerland.
Railway carriages : I learnt by experience that one can travel third class in Switzerland with comfort and the assurance of carriages as clean as even our own English ones. Possibly Mr. Blundell is confusing Swiss with International trains.
Dirty food : Mr. Blundell seems to have been extremely unfortunate in his experience. We have been supplied only with clean and excellent food, served by quick, neat wait- resses, and with the accompaniment of clean napery. The above may read as a panegyric ; it is, however, but the plain, unvarnished truth, dictated by a desire for fair play.
I have gone—my family have gone—when tired and worn out by the extreme stress of work, to the Engadine or to the Riffelalp, and the glorious air, the comfortable surroundings, soon have given back to us vigour, keenness, and readiness for another year's hard work.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Holy Trinity Vicarage, Eltham, S.E. 9.
HENRY A. HALL.
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