I write to you with grave concern over the matter of the acromantula in Irvingly. However, I first wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the Tuttle and Brennan families for their loss, if they truly are the only families who lost someone to this tragedy. That being said, I now turn to the issue of the Ministry of Magic's role in all this. Not to the lockdown itself or the dispatching of aurors and the Beast Division to Irvingly. In fact, I find very little to criticize in the swift action to contain the beast and ensure there were no others. What I do question is why such actions became necessary at all.

  Based on your reporting, are we to believe that a man-eating arachnid around the size of a stagecoach has been rampaging through the outskirts of Irvingly undetected for a week? Frankly, it would be alarming if such things happened anywhere. But Irvingly especially should be the last place where such things happen. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, if I might quote from Clause 73 of the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy, "will be responsible for the concealment, care, and control of all magical beasts, beings, and spirits dwelling within its territory's borders." Irvingly, having a muggle population less able to defend themselves from magical threats, is in most dire need of regular patrol to ensure that all manners of magical beasts do not enter. To allow such disasters to occur on our watch has certainly not earned any praise in the international community of wizardry.

  Why then, is the Prophet not more concerned with pressing the Ministry to explain itself? Nothing I have read suggests that you are concerned with anything beyond parroting the advisories of the Ministry without so much as an ounce of critique. Is it perhaps that Mr. Archibald Skeeter is not eager to speak ill of the department headed by one Ms. Morwenna Skeeter? I can certainly sympathize with the impulse not to speak poorly of a family member's performance. Unfortunately, the presence of this beast represents a colossal failure of the Department for the Control of Magical Creatures in its core mission. Perhaps a reporter willing to place the Ministry's performance under closer scrutiny should handle such a story. And perhaps the Ministry will take this as a learning opportunity and keep a closer watch on what fantastical threats are roaming just outside the town of Irvingly. I hopefully need not remind anyone reading that we are not on the most solid of ground when it comes to our relationship with the muggle world. Mistakes like these could jeopardize all the progress made in the last five years.

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