Observations On Soviet Life

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28835, 4 March 1959, Page 9

Observations On Soviet Life

Sir, —Bruce Mason, writing in “The Press,” said he saw things so different in such a short dis- < tance in Russia. I saw things 1 different in Christchurch. On Trotting Cup day Greymouth put on a train to Christchurch at half- j fare. From Christchurch to the trots the buses put the fare up , nearly double.—Yours, etc., i FAR BACK DAN. February 28, 1959. J

Sir, —In the last article by Bruce Mason on Russia there appear in bold type, as a sort of sub-head- j ing, the words “Everyone Literate.” True, he does say in the ' text of the article that every , Russian, bar the old and unteach- ( able, is nowadays literate; but most people, surely, will take this as a mere “facon de parler,” a rather loose generalisation. They ( certainly would if they had read , so factual and intimate a picture of modern Russia as a book like “The Privilege was Mine,” by i Princess Schakovsky. This seems to be an instance, a mild one admittedly, of the practice adopted by most periodicals of taking , a word or a phrase out of the i context and printing it in bold type so that it conveys an emphasis that may not always be justifiable and is sometimes wholly irrelevant.—Yours, etc., ILAM. March 2, 1969.