The Spectator

Monday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Signs of strain

From our UK edition

From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: Though we realize how terrible is the strain on our Army in Flanders, we are, of course, well aware that General French and Lord Kitchener are fully conscious of what is going on, and are taking all the measures necessary to provide the requisite reliefs, and to strengthen the line at any places where it is really threadbare. Though the strain and distress in the trenches, and the weariness of the men owing to want of sleep caused by almost continuous fighting, may be very great, and may call loudly for relief, from the higher military point of view there may be no danger.

Sunday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Can’t get the staff

From our UK edition

From The Spectator, 14 November 1914: THACKERAY dealt a blow at domestic service which it has never quite recovered. He made it ridiculous. It was the one bad turn that he did to English society. The litera- ture of his day reflected his point of view. Servants did not then read novels—they were 31s. 6d. each—neither did they belong to lending libraries. The derisive smiles of their employers were hardly understood by them. By now the employer has forgotten that he ever laughed, though it is impossible to deny that some very faint aroma of ridicule still clings to his mind in connexion with the thought of domestic service, at any rate for men. Meanwhile education has made rapid progress. A class which never read before is reading now.

Saturday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: State provision for state servants

From our UK edition

From The Spectator, 14 November 1914: A married man who was insured before the war may, if totally disabled, receive as much as 28s. a week for life. This is certainly an extremely liberal allowance, and we may be sure that the pacifists among us, especially those with Socialistic tendencies, will sooner or later draw a contrast between the liberal payment which the State makes to men disabled by war and those disabled in industry. The contrast is not a new one, but so far as it is used for argumentative purposes it rests upon a very obvious fallacy. The allowances made by the State are made by it to its own servants in return for services which they have undertaken at its call for the benefit of the country.

Friday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Russia and Constantinople

From our UK edition

From The Spectator, 14 November 1914: The Spectator for the last twenty years has urged that the Russians are the appropriate successors of the Turks at Constantinople. Russia is by far the greatest of the Black Sea Powers, and she ought to be given the key to her own back door— the possession of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles being conditioned, of course, by the guarantee of free access to the Black Sea for the shipping of other Powers, on the lines that govern the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal. We do not doubt for a moment that Russia will be perfectly willing to make such an agreement. That Russia must be given a stretch of territory which will enable her to reach Constantinople by land is obvious.

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: Richard Ingrams defends Joan Littlewood, and the truth about Napoleon’s poisonous wallpaper

From our UK edition

The state of Italy... Sir: Ambassador Terracciano’s letter (Letters, 1 November) about Nicholas Farrell’s article (‘The dying man of Europe’, 25 October) seems to me to be ill-researched and not thought through. Nicholas Farrell is spot on. The Ambassador is not. In another forum the Ambassador, on being asked what Italian nationals contribute to Britain, claimed that: ‘There is no area in which they don’t excel. Not only finance and management but also culture and the scientific and medical world, from professorship at Oxford to the chorus director of the Royal Opera, from the Science Festival at Cambridge to the director of the Tate Gallery in Liverpool.’ Has he ever stopped to think why this talent is in England, and not in Italy?

The Spectator

Fort Lauderdale’s law against feeding the homeless still isn’t America’s dumbest

From our UK edition

States of criminality A 90-year-old Florida man feeding the homeless was arrested under a Fort Lauderdale law which makes it illegal to share food with members of the public. Other laws from the 'Land of the Free': — In Indiana you can be arrested for statutory rape if you are caught driving a car with a passenger under the age of 18 who is not wearing socks and shoes. — In Ocean City it is illegal to eat while swimming in the sea. — In New York State it is illegal to walk around on a Sunday with an ice cream cone in your pocket. — In South Dakota it is illegal to lie down and fall asleep in a cheese factory. — In Oklahoma it is illegal to make an 'ugly face' at a dog. — In Nebraska it is illegal to sneeze in church.