GRADUATES COMBINE TO PRODUCE MIRTHFUL NUMBER OF LAMPOON

Old man Lampy, forty-five years of age this month, has got out another Graduates' Number. It is a good one.

I have been a hardened reader of the Lampoon for years and years, and I must say I have learned to shun that annual issue to which the ex-editors contribute. Only too often it has been made up partly of the inferior work of famous graduates who fished out of a pigeon-hole their worst performance of the year and sent it along to Lampy; and partly of the ponderous jests of men who were once elected to the staff through their own sheer industry or the editors' inadvertence, and who insist on contributing to graduates' numbers just to remind an astonished public that they once were of the company of wits.

But this Graduates' Number, thanks to Paul Hollister '13, who went after the contributors and got the number together and wrote the delightful leading editorial, is another story altogether.

Life's Editors Contribute Sketches

In it are represented, to begin with, some of Lampy's most honored honorary editors, Charles Daffa Gibson, who now owns Life and with the aid of several former Lampooners is making it at last a worthy offspring of its proud parent, contributes a sketch. Stephen Leacock submits a friendly little piece called "The Oldest Living Graduate," which is placed at the head of the number, where any contribution by America's foremost living humorist deserves to be placed. There are also verses and sketches by the genial and versatile James Montgomery Flagg.

However, it was not left to the "Ornery Editors," as Mr. Flagg calls them, to write the whole paper. Those who think that there was ever better light verse in the Lampoon than when Lawrence McKinney '12, Roger Burlingame '13, and Richard Evarts '13, were writing for it had better read "Integer Vitae or As You Were" and the other jingles in the Graduates' Number. Those who want to know the sort of absurdities that Robert Benchley '12 committed for the Lampoon before he gave up drawing and became Life's dramatic editor should consult page 455. Those who believe there is an abler comic artist in the country than Gluyas Williams '11, should glance at page 458 before making an irrevocable decision. Those who liked "Dere Mable" should read the skit by its author, Edward Streeter '14, on long-distance telephones. Finally, those who feel that the Lampoon is most unique when it is most insanely ridiculous should look at the "Old, Old Master" by John Lavalle '18.

There are other good things in the number, including a burlesque Crimson editorial on which I should not dare to comment in these columns. But space is too brief to tell about Sherwood's verses and Powel's "Valentine" and the rest. Perhaps you'd better just run out and buy a copy and see for yourself.