The inaccurate headine in today's Royal Gazette is potentially very damaging to the Bank of Butterfield and has done a cruel disservice to our employees who pride themselves on their compliance with all our anti-money laundering procedures. More importantly, the incorect headline is damaging to Bermuda as a responsible financial jurisdiction, with stringent anti-money laundering regulations. The Bank of Butterfield did not and does not admit that it was used for laundering cocaine cash, as your headline stated.

While the Bank expects no special consideration from The Royal Gazette , I do believe that you owe the Bermuda financial community, on which the livelihood of so many depends, an extra measure of care before printing such inaccurate and damaging headlines.

We have no knowledge of the case you have reported, except what has been told to us by your reporter. However, when apparently respectable depositors are introduced to us by reliable sources we are entitled to open an account. Where the funds are remitted through well-known banks in properly regulated jurisdictions, we give credence to the investigations carried out by the remitting bank when the funds are deposited with them. We have no way to determine the original source of funds and we are alerted to possible abuses only by insufficient or inadequate introductions or by large or too frequent deposits or by depositions from unusual sources.

If it transpires that the individual in question paid for advertising in The Royal Gazette , either in cash or by cheque, will you state in a banner headline the The Royal Gazette admits to laundering money? M. CALUM JOHNSTON President and Chief Executive Officer The Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Ltd.

Refunds will be made February 4, 1998 Dear Sir, As you reported in this morning's paper, yesterday evening's Bermuda Festival performance of "Wait Until Dark'' had to be cancelled after an actor collapsed with muscle spasms in the back.

I must apologise for misleading one of your reporters in a hurried late night conversation when giving him this news. As he correctly stated, a decision on tonight's performance and a possible supplementary performance will be reached today after consultation with Mr. Webb's doctors.

Until they have been consulted we cannot, therefore, settle just what arrangements to make about a refund to ticket holders. But I had intended to comment that any who are denied an opportunity to see the show will certainly be given a refund.

That is in fact the position, and we will reach a decision and make an announcement sometime today, just as soon as we can.

Meanwhile may I, on behalf of the Festival, send our sympathy to Mr. Webb, to all those BMDS members who worked so hard on a splendid production, and to disappointed ticket holders.

G.P.LLOYD Bermuda Festival Chairman Missing the point January 28, 1999 Dear Sir, Your recent editorial "Building a relationship'' was a good start, however, you didn't complete the exercise.

What went missing was the simple/painful fact that long before there was an International Business community to speak of, we had a Tourism product.

Similar arguments i.e. "Bermudians and Government have to recognise that our International companies compete on a global scale and must have staff that can match up with the best in the world'', have been made and continue to be made by our hotels.

Mr. Editor, 100 years after this (hotel) industry started in Bermuda, we continue to import senior managers and general managers at most of our major hotels. We continue to prepare non-Bermudians to become senior managers and in many cases, promote them over our local staff. Over the past 100 years we have made general managers out of many non-Bermudians, with all of the training and growth taking place in Bermuda. I need not name, names, those of you that know, know...

Our Government must demand that along with allowing foreign expertise to assume positions within our international companies, that these same companies promote the growth of Bermudians, through training, exposure and a real succession plan.

Mr. Editor, we can't allow the international business companies to make the same hollow promises that we continue to hear from our hotels.

To the PLP...you were given a clear mandate in November, 1998... It is your duty to honour it. Remember, your promise was for a "New Bermuda,'' not more of the same.

WATCHING Devonshire He is an Englishman! February 3, 1999 Dear Sir, Upon perusing an article entitled "Insecure, pompous and mocked -- what it means to be an Englishman'', I must confess that my first reaction was to reassure myself of my own self-importance. Patting myself on the back and quoting the words of Land of Hope and Glory, I felt secure in the knowledge that anyone who would write a report such as this must be a downtrodden Celt of some kind, hoping to take a nip from the hand of the gracious overlord who had civilised them.

Rather than identifying with lager louts and hooliganism, I remember an England, refined and discerning, bathing in the glow of past glories and if anyone ever says anything about that, then I shall release the hounds upon them.

It came as no surprise to me that the English are considered insular, as, once you have had command over an Empire upon which the sun never sets, you must return to your home, happy in the knowledge that there is nothing and no-one on this planet that cannot be forced to conform to the English way. The uneducated masses have conformed and now mock the English using a tongue originally foreign to them. If they have culture, it is because the English have deemed them worthy of victory in a battle or two. The English are the background that allow other cultures to stand out.

The English are neither insular nor insecure. We are a race tired of our whinging neighbours. We are a race who have accomplished more than any other since sensible life began. We are a race of non-gloaters, clinging not to a ten-minute win streak in the 14th Century. What do you give a race that has conquered the world and seen nothing worth retaining, bar Bermuda? Nothing, or nothingness. We have had it all and are now happy that our proud heritage will mark us in the history books as pioneers in the civilisation of the globe.

I rest confident in the fact that God is an Englishman.

COLONEL JELLYBEAN JINGO Smith's Parish A royal initiation January 30, 1999 Dear Sir, At last these life on the bus entries are starting to get some class. Perhaps you have seen us, or even been one of us. You know the people who try to balance backpacks and purses and our brown paper bags full of groceries. We are the people who continually look to the sky to see if an errant shower is about to turn our grocery bags into so much paper-mache m.

Well I sat next to one of these certified bus-riding, bag-carrying shoppers and the innocent enough question I asked as my seatmate with the grocery bag sat down was: "So what's for dinner?'' The answer revealed this was no ordinary grocery bag, this bag contained food for "Lord Gray''. Now I was interested because to date the closest I've gotten to Royalty in Bermuda was passing under the flagpole on Burnaby Street or spending the pictures of our lovely Queen.

But this day on the North Shore bus at last I was going to get the inside scoop. One sure way to know someone is to live with him and here I was sitting right next to the housemate of royalty. I was not disappointed. I was a little confused in the history of how this royal obtained all his titles. Think my seatmate called them elevations or somethings.

Being an American I'm never sure whether Sir comes before Lord or the other way around but no matter because the good stuff was that Lord Gray, like a lot of us here, just has to "get out'' at times. He also can be quite irritable when he gets up too early or after a bad night's sleep. And the last bit of information, so typical in the life of a royal, was that he hasn't even learned to use a can opener yet. Well, learning first hand how to live with royalty sure helped to pass the time riding the number 11 bus after a long day's work.

And in closing this short word to Lord Gray, just in case he is taking time out from his royal lifestyle to read this life on the bus entry: Be a good cat and eat your food.

DOCTOR MIKE Smith's Parish Jeweller came through January 29, 1999 Dear Sir, I just want to thank the Personalised Jewellery store for a job well done. I had a ring that I needed to be sized down from a 12 to a 6. Two Hamilton jewellery shops stressed it could not be done. So I happen to see Sayeed Ramadan and asked him if he could do it. Within two days I had my ring and it is great. He is truly a jeweller in the jewellery business.

Thanks Sayeed.

K. SOMNER Hamilton Parish