30 NOVEMBER 1974, Page 6

Country houses

Sir: Mr Magnusson .(November 16) would do well to bear in mind the privileged of today who are -not only absolved from fines but from the whole mechanism of the legal system.

Those struggling to preserve what they are stewards of, viz large country houses, deserve not derision but support; yet how could someone possessing such obvious envy possibly understand the true values of that great system which nurtured a sense of duty, family and decency; qualities all but forgotten in this egalitarian age.

Let us rid ourselves of our own anomolies before we hasten to attack the past as each generation always does.

J. Howarth Matching Vicarage, Harlow,' Essex