28 SEPTEMBER 1945, Page 4

The fiat issued by various luxury restaurants in London that

in future diners not in evening dress will be excluded is a manifestation of offensive snobbery which ought to be countered in the most effec- tive way possible—by scrupulous avoidance of the establishments in question. Most people's evening dress is not fit to wear after years of disuse, and as for dress shirts the cost of laundering, and the damage inflicted by laundries, is notorious. But this is a symp- tom of much else. By all means let people who want to wear evening dress wear it, but dictatorship in such matters, if we are to have a dictatorship at all, does not lie with hotel and restaurant managers.

jANUS.