Christmas past in Spectator letters

This is a selection of seasonal letters from The Spectator’s 185-year archive, now online at archive.spectator.co.uk. The emblem to the right is by our cartoon editor, Michael Heath. It was his first drawing for the magazine, and appeared in 1959.

Spare the turkey

Sir: Of the thousands who within the next few days will be ordering their Christmas turkeys, are any aware of the fact that the useless custom that makes it the proper and correct thing to have its most useless head upon the dish condemns the poor thing to a cruel and lingering death, while but for this custom, its head would be cut off comfortably and at once, and death would be instantaneous? As it is, the barbarous mode of killing it, simply that its head may be preserved intact, is to make a slit in its tongue, then string it up, and leave it slowly to bleed away its wretched life, a process that lasts many hours.