A SHORT WAY WITH LETTERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 102, 1 May 1937, Page 27

A SHORT WAY WITH LETTERS

The -French ■ (reports a correspondent of the "Manchester; Guardian") have been., taking a gleeful interest in the case of a Mr. Lister, alleged to have been condemned by the tribunal at Bridlington to pay ten shillings for not' "having replied to sundry official communications and to have declared. "The last time I opened.-,a letter was at least, three years, ago. . ...".". It may cheer up Mr ; Lister quite considerably to know that not so long ago an. eminent Frenchman, who became President of the Republic, pursued the same ruthless policy concerning undesired correspondence.' . '''..''"'[

When Armand Fallieres' was elected President.. of the .Senate, a post carrying, an official residence, he.cautiously kept on his flat in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, because the certainty of tenure of his honour was only a year at a"-time." - But:promotion to the Presidency, of the Republic assured him of seven years at the Ely see, so ';■ he sent removal..men. to. fetch away his furniture. They found in a cupboard several thousands of letters which had never been opened.' : ■

Finding that attention to his correspondence' took up too much'time and that he did not want most of the letters anyway, he merely tossed aside all envelopes which looked dull. He knew the handwriting , of., his. friends, and their letters he- did: open. What could be simpler? : ; v ; :,.: •

All sorts of dire things ought to have happened to him ,no doubt. But what did happen to him—post rather ttian

propter hoc, one ■ fears —was that the nation made him President. Whereas poor Mr. Lister had to pay ten shillings.- Life is like that. : Stories of unopened letters, recall Sheridan, who did very well in that line. Professor Smythe told . Tom Moore that once, when waiting to catch Sheridan emerging from his bedroom, he looked over the papers on the table and saw several unopened letters, one of them with a coronet, and remarked to another friend of Sheridan's "We are all treated alike you see." Whereupon the friend said that on one occasion he had found among a heap oi unopened letters on Sheridan's table one of his own. He remembered that. some little time r back, Sheridan had sent him an urgent petition for a loan of £10, explaining that he was lying "money bound" in an inn and could not get away till he had paid his bill. The friend had sent the sum asked for. . Now he had curiosity enough to open the letter, and found the money which he had sent intact. Thinking, therefore, that he had better snatch such an opportunity—rare indeed in the case of any friend or acquaintance of Sheridan —of getting his money back untouched, he pocketed the letter and contents and said ; no. more about them. -.

There is a more hackneyed tale of Sheridan, calling at his bank, being asked whether he had. not received a letter and finding out that one had been sent-to him.some time earlier advising him that £1000 had been paid in from some linecure. '