MICHAEL Fry in extolling the virtues of dukes and the hereditary principle (April 29) presumably regrets the abolition after the '45 of the ''Hereditary Jurisdictions'' whereby these gentlemen were judge and jury in their own courts.

While tugging the forelock in the direction of the Buccleuchs and their illustrious forebears he omits to mention that his ''Grace'' who is also Duke of Queensberry has among his antecedents a son of the house who killed and roasted the kitchen boy while his father the duke was out celebrating the Union.

That the hereditary rights of these people is largely founded on theft is conveniently ignored and with the ownership of land on the agenda of the new Parliament this would be an excellent time for the updating and reprinting of Tom Johnston's Our Noble Families of 1909.

While there's a case for the private ownership of productive land the hereditary principle is at best a lottery and applied to the stewardship of rocks and bogs is about as sensible as hereditary Scotland goalkeepers or brain surgeons.

The system has led to an endless queue of landowners with the ''poor mooth'' shamelessly clipping the public purse in the form of environmental improvement grants (cash-for-toffs schemes) for land which has become so degraded under their stewardship in the first place.

F Meek,

35 Glenraith Road, Glasgow.

April 30.