SCATHING CRITICISM OF CHAIN LETTER PEST.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 28 May 1931, Page 5

SCATHING CRITICISM OF CHAIN LETTER PEST.

St. John Irvine, writing in a recent issue of Time and Tide, has the following scathing remarks to make in regard to the subject of chain letters, of which some of our readers have had recent experience:— Superstitions do not easily die. A gentleman has taken the trouble to send me from Peru one of those absurd chain letters which periodically are broadcast by persons who seem to have singularly little to do. I am requested to copy this chain letter nine times and to send a copy to each of nine persons to whom I wish good luck. “The letter was started by a railroad officer, and should go round the world three times. Do not break the chain, for it you do you will have bad luck. Do it within nine days, and you will have good luck. ” I am afraid I have ruined myself, for I have neither “done it” within nine days, nor do I intend to do it at all. The remarkable gcnetlman who sent it to me —I do not know him from Adam—evidently feels about this chain letter as Pascal felt about paradise—that it is safer to behave as it you believe in it, since if there is no paradise you will not be any the worse, and if there is, you will be all right. He apologises for sending it to me ‘ ‘ because I think it is an imposition and a useless effort with no final object or good attained. However, as so many eminent men have taken the trouble to maintain the chain, it seems only fair for me to do my part. ’ ’ And this gentleman, who, I hope, has some work to do, on no better grounds than that has solemnly made nine copies of a letter which fills a page of large paper, and expects me to do the same. The mutt! The boob! The complete and irredeemable damned fool! I glance at the names of those who have ‘ ‘ signed ’ ’ and nine times repeated the letter. Senator Heflin sent it to Mr. Bernard Shaw, and Mr. Shaw —yes, I don’t think! —sent it to Mr. Arthur. Train, who sent it to General Dawes. The American Ambassador apparently had nothing to do on the day he received the chain letter, so he sat dow T n and made nine copies of it and sent one of them to Mr. Henry Ford, who stopped making motor cars so that he might send a copy to Colonel Lindbergh! I imagine that that gallant gentleman came out of the air purposely to make nine copies of the letter! He sent one of them to Miss Dorothy Dix. The chain continues from Miss Dix to Lady Hay, M. Aristide Briand, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. David Windsor —can this be a playful reference to the Prince of Wales?—Mr. John Wiliys, Mr. John Barrymore, Mr. A. W. Mellon and 35 other persons, until, at last, it lands at me, w r hcrc it stops. Somehow' I cannot see M. Briand pausing in his work of governing France to distribute chain letters about the world, and 1 fear thaT if he had done so Mr. MacDonald would scarcely have thanked him for his copy, or have instantly sent one to “David Windsor,” I suppose some people really believe in this, sort of stuff. No one could possibly circulate such letters for fun.