RUM AND REPRISALS

In many college towns there exist feuds of long standing and great venerability between the local police and the students. Whether or not there is such a feud in New York is hard to say, but the latest stroke of Police Commissioner Enright's "special flying squads" is either a masterful sort of retaliation or else a most dastardly trick. These special raiding squads are composed exclusively of "young detectives apparently chosen for their ability to look and act the college boy on a lark"; they trickle insidiously into the doomed "chop house", purchase several drinks and then ungratefully arrest the waiters and the proprietor.

It is not difficult to see how this sort of impersonation will react on the true "college boy" when he sets out on an honest-to-goodness "lark". No one double the ability of the young detectives to impersonate the "college boy" perfectly--so the damage will be irreparable. Walters will hide their faces, and what will be much worse, their stores of liquors, whenever a "college boy" heaves in sight; proprietors will see that he is conducted to the farther-most table in the most dismal corner; and patrons will eye him askance with that contemptuous respect ordinarily reserved for enforcers of the law.

No doubt it is a touching tribute to the college man that the special investigators should have chosen this particular disguise to allay suspicion and to coax hidden beverages from their secret places. But if this practice continues, and the faith of restaurant owners is repeatedly betrayed by masquerading detectives, the college man will be driven to a last and desperate resort. His final remedy will be, of course, to return the compliment and disguise himself as a "rum hound"" which as Donald Ogden Stewart says, is easily done by tucking the ends of one's necktie under the points of one's collar.