The post has been heavy this week, by the standards of a still-young paper. Some of it is printable. The rest is on file, where it will stay. A representative selection follows, with the editor’s notes in brackets where a thing seemed to want clarifying. Letters are edited for length and, where strictly necessary, for plausibility. Four are printed here. They share a theme, which the editor would summarise as the conviction, held independently by a drake, a coot, a household, and a frog, that this paper has not yet taken the matter seriously enough.
From a travelling drake, filed from the shallows
Sir. The figure of eleven crusts to the hour, quoted in Monday’s editorial on the matter of bread, does not reflect conditions at the southern approach to the East Bank, not in my experience. In the quarter-hour before dusk on Thursday I observed, personally, rates approaching fourteen, and no improvement whatever in the quality of the crusts on offer. The situation is worse than this paper appears prepared to admit. One would welcome a firmer editorial line.
A TRAVELLING DRAKE
[The eleven was a morning reading, taken before the usual evening deterioration. The correction is accepted in its broad spirit. The firmer editorial line is noted, and held for consideration.]
From the coot, filed in haste on Friday
Sir. The classification “Coot (ineligible)” was imposed upon me after the fact, by a Clerk of the Race who had not himself run in the contest, and who lacked any standing to rule on the matter but his own preference. My protest stands. I finished third. I propose to finish third in every Channel Sprint hereafter, until the record is amended. In the meantime I require the return of my registration fee, being a small pebble of some sentimental value.
COOT
[The pebble is understood to remain in the Clerk’s keeping for the duration of the adjudication. The owner is advised to be patient. He will not enjoy this advice.]
From a family on the west pier, filed Saturday afternoon
Madam. We wish it recorded, with all respect to the paper, that we have not been unsettled by the presence of the heron, whatever others on the west pier may claim. We are not a household easily unsettled, and we kept our usual habits throughout. We write only to note that a number of small fish, formerly resident beneath our pier, appear since Thursday to have gone elsewhere, and to ask, with all deference, that the Subcommittee take an interest at its earliest convenience.
A FAMILY OF DABCHICKS
[The editor is not persuaded the writers were as calm as they insist. The missing fish, though, is a fair point. The Subcommittee has been told.]
From a frog of some personal acquaintance
Sir. Friday’s obituary of the central lily pad granted the late pad a tenure of “as many seasons as most living waterfowl can remember.” I wish it stated, for the record, that I have been resident in the southern waters for somewhat longer than most living waterfowl, and that the pad was already central when I arrived. I mention this not by way of correction but in affectionate supplement, with no claim on the paper’s space beyond a small corner of the next edition.
A LONG-RESIDENT FROG
[The supplement is accepted with gratitude. The paper extends its regards and is glad to find the frog in good spirits, notwithstanding the bereavement.]
The remaining letters are held to a future edition, as space allows and as the relevant parties can be located. Two could not be located at all, which the editor notes without surprise. Letters for publication may be honked in the general direction of the reeds. The editor undertakes to read each in full (ish), and to weigh it with whatever equanimity the week has left over. This week, the editor concedes, that is not a great deal.