Surveying the ranks of his turbulent followers in Brighton this week Mr Jeremy Thorpe could have been forgiven for thinking that Liberals are an ungrate- ful lot. Fresh from a...

Mad dog and white panther AUBERON WAUGH Ann Arbor, Michigan—The great inter- national student power movement began seven years ago—or so they say—with the formation of...

The new force M. RUTHERFORD Bonn—The most controversial figure in West German politics today is Professor Karl August Fritz Schiller, the fifty-eight year old Social...

The Squire's ghost lives on CRABRO There is something wonderfully reminiscent of a Victorian melodrama about the report- ing, on this side of the Channel, of the long...

Clear verdict MARTIN WALLACE Belfast—The Cameron report on disturb- ances in Northern Ireland is, above all else, a damning indictment of almost fifty years of Unionist...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS 'It suits salesmen to promote self-indulgence . . . to call love anything which sells tooth- paste or petrol'—Lady Lothian in 'Woman's Journal'. O...

Trouble in the Sixth RHODES BOYSON Dr Rhodes Boyson is headmaster of High- bury Grove School, a London comprehen- sive school for boys. As with the supply of teachers, so...

The welfare rackets In our issue of 6 September Robert Oddatns (the pseudonym of an official of the Supplementary Benefits Commission) wrote 'The truth about the welfare...

J. W. M. THOMPSON At one stage in my life I spent a certain amount of time attending parliamentary elections, and I came to know well one peculiarly poignant moment when the...

Layman's dilemma SIMON RAVEN Some weeks ago, I was attacked by a pain- ful and humiliating infection of the bladder, the precise details of which I shall with- hold. It is...

From the 'Spectator', 18 September 1869- Lady Palmerston died at Brockett Hall, Herts, this day week, in the eighty-third year of her age. She was, when Countess Cowper. one of...

Weekend storm GEORGE SCOTT What London Weekend Television needs more than anything else is a respite from publicity and a chance to heal its wounds in private. A little...

In the chair BILL GRUNDY They had a little party down at the Observer this week. I wasn't invited, but I still hope they enjoyed themselves. What they were celebrating was the...

The Duke and the Emperor DENIS BROGAN Some time ago I complained in this journal that the Oxford University Press had allowed its World's Classics edition of Lord Stanhope's...

All people great and small ELIZABETH BOWEN The chief aim of this book is to describe, as accurately as possible, the effect of war on civilian life in Britain'. So opens Angus...

G. D. RAMSAY Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter-Reformation William J. Bouwsma (California UP 122s) For most of us, the...

Martin SEYMOUR-SMITH Shaw-7he Chucker-Out': A Biographical Exposition and Critique Allan Chappelow (Allen and Unwin 75s) Allan Chappelow's Shaw the Villager, and Human Being...

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER Queen Victoria Lytton Strachey (Chatto and Windus 25s) Ermyntrude and Esmeralda Lytton Strachey introduction by Michael Holroyd, illus- trated by Erte (Blond...

RONALD HINGLEY The Love Girl and the Innocent Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Bodley Head 21s) This play is the latest of Solzhenitsyn's works to reach the West. Like Cancer Ward and...

Against All Reason Geoffrey Moorhouse (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 63s) Monks and nuns have through the centuries been a significant part of Christendom. If many people think of...

C. C. WRIGLEY Reflections on the Nigerian Civil War Raph Uwechue (orrn/London 25s) Anguish over the miseries of the Biafran people should, for Englishmen, issue in at least two...

MORTIMER WHEELER Voyage to Atlantis J. W. Mayor Jr Souvenir Press 42s) The End of Atlantis: New Light on an Old Legend J. V. Luce (Thames and Hudson Os) Atlantis: The Truth...

JOHN LARNER The Borgias: The Rise and Fall of a Renais- sance Dynasty Michael Mallett (Bodley Head 63s) The Borgia family still flourishes today in South America and France;...

ANGUS MAUDE Growth: The Price We Pay E. J. Mishan (Staples 42s) The publication of Dr E. J. Mishan's The Costs of Economic Growth in 1967 was an event of some importance. It...

OLIVER WARNER Man of War: Sir Robert Holmes and the Restoration Navy Richard 011ard (Hodder and Stoughton 50s) This is a biography of a professional fighting sailor who grew up...

PATRICK ANDERSON The Philhellenes C. M. Woodhouse (Hodder and Stoughton 42s) For well over a thousand years the Greeks had a bad image and a bad press. In the middle ages...

HILARY SPURLING When Sean O'Casey's The Silver Tassie opened at the Abbey Theatre in 1935, it caused great excitement. 'A cup . .. filled from a sewer', 'blasphemy, vulgarity...

Pere et fils PENELOPE HOUSTON Capricious Summer (Paris-Pullman, 'A') Me, Natalie (Curzon, 'X') Not much has been heard about how things are going in the Czech cinema in this...

Ends and means BRYAN ROBERTSON The collection of French paintings belonging to the new American Ambassador and his wife, Mr and Mrs Walter Annenberg, are now displayed in two...

Iron Chancellor, steely Governor NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Are you looking forward happily to next year? Then don't. The Bank of England tells you in its latest Bulletin that you...

JOHN BULL It now looks probable that the clearing banks will reveal their true profits for tt first time early next year. This prospect hr already pushed individual bank shares...

Sir: It is perhaps to early to assess the consequences of the latest African efforts for peace in Nigeria-Biafra. But it may be assumed that the resolution of the Organ- isation...

From L. G. Holford-Stevens, F. 1 heanacho Okole, E. S. James, Jossleyn Hennessy, Roland N. Stromberg, Shaun Mandy, Pro- fessor Quentin Bell, John Guest, J. Al. Wall- bridge,...

Sir: I have read (Letters, 23 August) Count Potocki of Montalk's disclaimer, and am glad to learn that he is no ghost but, to judge from his robust epistolary style, very much...

Sir: I get my SPECTATOR upwards of a month late, but there are incidental advantages in being thus behind the times. I have just received the 12 July issue and open it to read...

you would pro- vide the hospitality of your columns for an appeal for the gypsy children of the South- East. Thanks to recent publicity, many people have become aware of some...

Sir: As Anthony Powell in his excellent article on this author (6 September) point, out, her name is frequently mispronounced. Miss Compton-Burnett was evidently irritated by...

Sir : J. W. M. Thompson in 'Spectator's notebook' (13 September) cites (from my essay 'British Education for an Elite in India : 1780-1947', included in the sympo- sium...

August, under the heading `Table talk', Sir Denis Brogan makes the following statements: 1. That Leonard Woolf was the last of the 'Blooms- berries'. 2. That Leonard Woolf...

Sir:I feel some publicity should be given to the activities of a body variously called 'Medical Research Group', 'Medical Service Quality Control', operating from Nottingham. I...

Onion towers JOHN WELLS Brighton—Mingling this week with the shabbily-dressed Sussex peasants and small businessmen who take the two weeks' official holiday permitted them...

No. 571 : Hair piece Focus, the Consumer Council's magazine, last week published some findings that will be of comfort to those suffering from bald- ness. The belief that men...

PHILIDOR W. Issler (1st Prize, Schweizer Arbeiter-Schack 1952) White to play and mate in two moves solution next week. Solution to no. 456 (Mansfield): B-B7, th R-R5. 1 . . ....

Across 1 Cathedral magistrate (7) 5 Properly speaking, the old Emperor has the panacea for every ill (3-4) 9 Recipient of the tune-caller's fee in Italy (7) 10 Jawed till it was...