"we Hope you are Quite well and i wish you many Happy returns of Christmas and i hope you will Excuse me riting to You but mamma Says you allways are Fond of little people so i Hope you will Excuse as me and charley read in the illusterated London [_News_] that Mr. Hans Christian anderson is Coming to spend His Hollidays in England And We shold like to see Him becase he as Made us All so Happy with is Betiful storys the ugly duck the Top and the ball the snow Quen the Red shoes the Storks little ida the Constant tinsoldier great claws and Little Claws the darning Neddle and All the rest of Them and it says in the illustat [_several attempts, a smear, and the spelling evaded_] Paper the children shold Meet him in the Crys-pallace and we shold Like to Go and tell him how much We Love him for his betiful stores do you know the tinder box and tommelise and charley liks the wild Swans best but i Hope you will Excuse bad riting and i Am "Yours affectionate "NELLY. charley says i Have not put in wat We ment if you please Will you put In punch wat everybody is to Do to let Mr. hans Ansen know how Glad we are He is Coming." We hope that Hans Andersen--who, by the way, as a writer of fairy stories is regarded with disfavour by Madame Montessori--saw this letter. On the relations of parents and children generally, two of _Punch's_ aphorisms are not without their bearing on present-day conditions. In the year 1844 the _Comic Blackstone_ reads: "Children owe their parents support; but this is a mutual obligation, for they must support each other, though we sometimes hear them declaring each other wholly insupportable." And the other, under the heading "The World's Nursery," runs: "The spoilt children of the present age rarely turn out the great men of the next." It should be added, as some readers will remember, that in neither of the decades under review were the children of the poor in any danger of being spoiled. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY