Dear Sir, - So once again your misguided correspondent "G. E." is on the warpath, this time with poor "Candy" for an objective! Has the man no other interest than attacking someone or other? I wonder what he is in everyday life Is he a Bolshevik agitator? Or an official of an "anti-vivisection" society? If either, it would account for his liking for anonymity, against the day when he may feel like vamoosing with corporate funds! Well, let's hope Miss "M. D.'s" very revelatory sketches (in your current number) give him the creeps fairly and properly.
These sketches, by the way, bear out very admirably my statement in my previous letter re the superiority of sketches over photographs as conveyers of the feeling of intimacy. For all their roughness of finish, what an insight they give us into their author's personality! The accompanying letter, too, was of the highest interest to monopede lovers. Inter alia, Miss "M. D." enquires upon a curious point of etiquette; surely if it's to he comfort to sit with her shortened thigh across over the other, then it's up to her to get on with it, with this one reservation in a large mixed gathering, including persons not well known to her, there may very likely be somebody or other of the ultra-squeamish sort, to whom the sight of anything tending to over-emphasise a curtailed limb may be distressing; at such time she will certainly be well advised to refrain from such a practise (so, too, from the useful but inartistic habit of standing with her stump resting on the hand-rest of her crutch) but certainly not at any other! Such mannerisms, in the eyes of her more intimate circle, will surely all add to her vividness of personality! I notice, too, that she says she finds over-long walking on her French crutches trying to her arm-pits. Has she tried the spring-topped variety I have already more than once advocated in letters you have published? I'm sure that she would Lend them an improvement. They can even be had with pneumatic tops that blow up like a bicycle tyre, and give in to the slightest pressure. I'm almost sure a big girl like her (five feet nine inches spells some weight, however slim she may be!) would find it worth her while to try them, and that her boy friend would regard them with approval.
Incidentally, to revert to my starting theme, I think it's high time a halt was called to the various detractors of Miss "Candidus," who very surely, to the vast majority of "London Life" readers, seems by far the most human and the most independent minded of all the regular contributors. Though less uproariously funny than in the days when she used to participate in wild pranks with her sister and cousin - her tale of her experiences as a hospital probationer; of a troupe with a "cancan" troupe to Algiers; of her voluntary incarceration in a "bug-house" and uncomfortable escape thence, were among the very funniest effusions I have ever read in my life - she is always highly entertaining; no small thing in these depressing days! It's for 36 3 eher alleged untruthfulness - well, were either the fair sex or the journalistic fraternity ever particularly renowned for veracity? No, we must take her as we find her and, if we don't like her contributions, should leave them unread. Those who want fact, sober and unadorned, would be better advised to leave London Life alone and seek it in such a periodical as say, the "Banker's Record!"
(N. B. - A little while ago I was sitting out of doors one summer evening, and on the other end of the seat saw a young lady of grimly purposeful mien knitting a woolly jumper with such concentrated Fury that the iron seat vibrated to the play of her elbows, and every now and again pausing with a sniff of exasperation, to turn over the page of a magazine open on her knee - a copy, I was interested to note, of that last named!)
Finally, Mr. Editor, let me express my regret at the destruction of your publishing house, particularly if, as I understand, your files and stocks of back numbers went with it. Yet, out of evil, good may come! It must have been fearfully inconvenient to produce such a publication as "London Life" from two places at once! Let us hope you and yours flourish exceedingly in your new quarters under the world-renowned shadow of Messrs. Huntley and Palmer, but that no member of your staff shares the fate of the hero of a popular song of my youth (I still hum it in blither moments!) who fell for the charms of a girl employee of the above mentioned famous firm, only to find his married life to be made impossible by her incurable habit of eating biscuits in the bed!
I remain, Mr. Editor,
Yours truly,
"C. D. B."