The Times Great Letters: A century of notable correspondence

ROSSLYN

The Earl of Rosslyn

P.S. — Of course I want to go to the front after a week’s drill.

Lord Rosslyn, the 5th Earl, was then in his mid-forties.

* * * * * * *

Old Socks Wanted

12 December 1914

Sir, Mittens are wanted badly by the troops and they are scarce. A sock only wears out in the foot part, and if this is cut off (thrown away) and a hole made in the other part for the thumb to go through, an excellent mitten can be made without any expense. I am paying unemployed typists to sew them over, but in three months I have exhausted my circle of friends. May I ask your readers to send me all the old (clean) socks they can collect, in order in this way to provide more work and more comforts without cost and without interfering with the living of any other class?

Yours faithfully,

GEORGE PRAGNELL

* * * * * * *

Colonel Cornwallis-West

12 January 1915

Sir, Lieutenant-Colonel George Cornwallis-West, who has been in continuous command since September of one of the battalions of the Royal Naval Division which were present at Antwerp, has been much annoyed and feels justly indignant at persistent rumours which have been going round to the effect that he has been “shot in England as a spy.”

Colonel West desires us to say that he is alive and well, and he will be much obliged if you will accord him the favour of publishing this letter.

We write as Colonel West’s solicitors. He was with us this morning.

We are, yours faithfully,

ROOPER AND WHATELY

Rooper and Whately, Solicitors

Cornwallis-West was primarily known to readers of The Times for his marriages. His first wife was the former Lady Randolph Churchill, thus making him stepfather to Winston Churchill — albeit the two men were the same age. He had recently wed the actress

Mrs Patrick Campbell, who first played Eliza Doolittle on stage.

* * * * * * *

More Leeches needed

28 January 1915

Sir, Our country has been for many months suffering from a serious shortage of leeches. As long ago as last November there were only a few dozen left in London, and they were second-hand.

Whilst General Joffre, General von Kluck, General von Hindenburg, and the Grand Duke Nicholas persist in fighting over some of the best leech-areas in Europe, possibly unwittingly, this shortage will continue, for even in Wordsworth’s time the native supply was diminishing, and since then we have for many years largely depended on importations from France and Central Europe. In November I made some efforts to alleviate the situation by applying to America and Canada, but without success. I then applied to India, and last week, owing to the kindness of Dr. Annandale, Director of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, and to the officers of the P. and O. Company and to Colonel Alcock, M.D., of the London School of Tropical Medicine, I have succeeded in landing a fine consignment of a leech which is used for blood-letting in India. It is true that the leech is not the Hirudo medicinalis of our pharmacopœias, but a different genus and species, Limnatis granulosa. Judging by its size, always a varying quantity in a leech, we may have to readjust our ideas as to a leech’s cubic capacity, yet I believe, from seeing them a day or two ago, they are willing and even anxious to do their duty. They have stood the voyage from Bombay and the changed climatic conditions very satisfactorily, and are in a state of great activity and apparent hunger at 50, Wigmore-street, London, W.

It is true that leeches are not used to anything like the extent they were 80 years ago — Paris alone, about 1830, made use of some 52 millions a year — but still they are used, though in much smaller numbers.

It may be of some consolation to my fellow-countrymen to know that our deficiency in leeches is more than compensated by the appalling shortage of sausage-skins in Middle Europe. With true German thoroughness they are trying to make artificial ones!

I am yours faithfully,

A. E. SHIPLEY

The zoologist and Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, Arthur Shipley, an expert on parasitic worms, was knighted in 1920 for his war work, which included letting the Master’s lodgings be used as a convalescent home for the wounded.

* * * * * * *

Intelligent Passports

17 February 1915

Sir, A little light might be shed, with advantage, upon the high-handed methods of the Passports Department at the Foreign Office. On the form provided for the purpose I described my face as “intelligent.” Instead of finding this characterization entered, I have received a passport on which some official utterly unknown to me, has taken it upon himself to call my face “oval.”

Yours very truly,

BASSETT DIGBY

* * * * * * *

Racing in Wartime

5 March 1915

Sir, I am afraid I cannot follow your reasoning with regard to Epsom and Ascot as set forth in your brief leading article to-day. I put aside the remarks about the affair of the Epsom Grand Stand, as to which there has been both misstatement and misapprehension, which I should have thought the matter-of-fact statement of the Stewards of the Jockey Club would have finally cleared away.

But that is a side, and I may add a false, issue. You say that our Allies “cannot understand how Englishmen can go to race meetings when their country is engaged in a life and death struggle.” With all submission I think our Allies understand us better than this. They know that Englishmen do not think it necessary to put up the shutters whenever they are engaged in war. They know that we are paying two millions a day for this war, and do not think that we shall add the sacrifice of our thoroughbred horses, which are so invaluable for the future of our Army. For, make no mistake, if our races are to cease our thoroughbred horses must disappear. No man can afford to keep bloodstock for the mere pleasure of looking at them in the stable. You hope that there will be no attempt to hold meetings at Epsom, and, “above all,” at Ascot this year. Of what nature, may I ask, is the original sin attaching to these meetings? You record races of a very inferior character almost daily in your columns, sometimes in impressive print. Why do you sanction these and select for special reprobation the two noblest exhibitions of the thoroughbred in the world?

But you say our Allies will misunderstand us. There are many, however, of our French allies who will remember that the winner of the Derby was announced in General Orders during the Crimean War.

Why, indeed, should we embark on the unprecedented course which you indicate, and condemn all our historical practice? Once before our country has been “engaged in a life and death struggle,” at least as strenuous and desperate as this; I mean that against the French Revolution and Napoleon. All through that score of bloody years the Epsom and Ascot Meetings were regularly held, nor indeed does it seem to have occurred to our forefathers that it was guilty to witness races while we were at war. I remember asking the late Lord Stradbroke which was the most interesting race that he had ever witnessed for the Ascot Cup. He replied (I am almost sure, though it is outside my argument) that for 1815, which was run on June 8, eight days before Quatre Bras, 10 days before Waterloo, when Napoleon and Wellington were confronting each other to contend for the championship of the world.

I am and desire to remain remote from controversy, but am anxious to remind you of our history and tradition with regard to this question, and to ask you to pause before you condemn not merely Epsom and “above all” Ascot, but also the principles and practice of ancestors not less chivalrous and humane than ourselves.

ROSEBERY

The 5th Earl of Rosebery — prime minister from 1894–95 — won several classic races as an owner, including the Derby twice.

* * * * * * *

No Profits from War

14 September 1915