Letter from the Linkman [excerpt]

     The assassination of the President of the United States has deeply grieved every rational member of the English-speaking race. The London papers, with few exceptions, were published with bands of mourning on the day of his death and on that of the funeral, and they all bore witness to his many good qualities and to the high position he held amongst the rulers of men—but they were ignorant of how his name is spelt. On Saturday, the 14th, the Times had the name as McKinley in a leading article, and, has throughout adhered to that spelling. The Morning Post spelt it without the “c”—as M’Kinley—and that is the way the American papers give the name (vide New York World, Saturday, September 14). The President of the United States, however humble his origin, is a ruler who can claim to rank on an equality with any Emperor, and it does seem singular that either the Americans are ignorant of the way to spell the name of their President, or that the London papers are. It is also curious that this discrepancy has not been discovered till now. It is probable that M’Kinley is an American abbreviation of the name, as McKinley is a British shortening of the original MacKinley. However, there must be one way of spelling this in the instance of the late President, and that is the way in which he spelt it himself.