Court Will Decide 'Poon Fate Today

Cambridge officials will decide this morning whether or not the city will press criminal charges against the Lampoon or any of its members for 'distributing obscene material through minors." Representatives of the 'Poon will meet with Acting Chief of Police Patrick J. McCarthy at 8:30 a.m. before the Clerk of Court.

Captain McCarthy ordered 300 copies of the Lampoon's Saturday parody issue The Pontoon, seized from newsboys who were selling it on Boylston Street to the crowd headed across the river to the Stadium, He advised the magazine not to cell the issue locally, and by yesterday noon the last copies had disappeared from newsstands.

The issue has been distributed to subscribers in the Yard and most of the Houses and has already gone out in the mails.

Two-page Spread

Complaint centered on the obscenity of a two-page spread of cartoons reprinted from midwestern college humor magazines. The editors of the Bow Street publication deliberately printed these cartoons because they thought them representative of the had taste the Pontoon was designed to parody, they said.

They felt they would be within the law since the magazines which originally printed the cartoons had been sent through the mails without any trouble.

Associate Dean Watson conferred with Lampoon representatives last night and told them that no action against the magazine or any of its editors could even be considered until the Administrative Board meets tomorrow afternoon.

As for the contents of the issue, Watson told the CRIMSON last night. "I haven't seen a copy yet, and I won't read it until the morning."

The issue was produced as if the editors of the Ponca City (Iowa) U. Pontoon had taken over the Lampoon as the College's purveyor of local humor. The issue was planned and written as a satire on the ways, habits, and sense of humor of Midwestern college students and their funny magazines.

Life at Harvard U.

The Pontoon contained the reprint cartoons, as reprint column of "two-line gags," and a series of original articles describing life in Cambridge as if Harvard men behaved the way the Lampoon thinks Midwestern collegians do.

The 'Poonsters heralded the publication of the parody with a public show on the front steps of their building Thursday afternoon. The editors appeared in formal clothes, bade the College farewell, and disappeared in a limousine.

A few moments later they reappeared in sweaters, T-Shirts, two-toned jackets, and the like, and professed themselves to be the staff of the Ponca City U. Pontoon, come to put out an issue for and in place of the Lampoon