STRAIN OF MIDYEARS HITS MT. AUBURN ST.

The following review of the Fiftieth Anniversary number of the Lampoon, which appears on the stands today, was written for the Crimson by Lucius Beebe '27.

The fiftieth anniversary number of the Lampoon, fresh to hand, bears unhappy but strict witness to the fact that senility in the lbis sets in at an age even earlier than in humans. It is not that we lack the most profound respect for the Lampoon tradition, but it would seem that the lean years have arrived in the purlieus of Mount Auburn and Plympton Streets, for seldom have we previously been favored with such a monumental display of gratuitous imbecility, such wholesale vulgarity of the common or garden variety, or such lamentable paucity of wit and artistry as is represented by this issue. The lbis has that bilious and mangy appearance that we hear was characteristic of the late lamented William Jennings Bryan at the Dayton trial, and by the same token seems to be headed for silence. At least unless it takes a brace and buys itself a bottle or two of Epsom salts.

Heary Wheezes Stage Comeback

In his valedictory leader, the outgoing President of the Lampoon makes his successor beir to an "empty paste pot and a pair of shears," obviously the worn instrumeats with which a large proportion of the wit and humor of the present number was acquired, for, with the possible exception of the story which begins with the two newlyweds in a Pullamn and later contains references to oranges, there is hardly an antique and hoary wheeze which does not stage a comeback somewhere between the "Prologue" and the Tiffany (Exacting Standards) advertisement on the final page. Vide such delicatessen as "Do you own much in Flerida?" and its answer: "Oh, lots and lots," or "She: You look much better without those glasses. He: So do you" and even the whiskered one about the coon who burns his finger on the "damned stove" while his wife asks "Why didn't you feel the stove before you put your finger on it?"

From beginning to end the Lampoon is a catalogue of incredibly antique howlers illustrated here and there with drawings of unquestioned merit, but generally with cartoonographic abominations of the first water.

Too Many Meters in "Prologue"

The opening shot in the form of a "Prologue" proves a nasty sock at the reader with even the faintest metrical sensibilities. This tasty bit of verse contains no less than five various meters comprising trimeter, tetrameter and rentameter with iambs, and dactyls thrown in for good measure, and while thrown in for good measure, and while we cannot but approve the senti ment which suggests that the liquor customarily used at the christening of a ship might better be dedicated to beverage purposes, we feel bound to protest against any such modernist scheme of versification. The redeeming feature of this page is the excellent drawing by Mr. Codfish Cabot showing Lampy in the act of launching a ship emblematic of the fifty years of his jovial existence.

In fact the illustrations in the issue under consideration are far and away superior to the witticisms which accompany them. The cover is appropriate and wholly admirable (although not the equal of the George Washington picture of last spring) and shows Lampy acknowledging the greetings of the world upon the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. A cake illuminated by fifty (count them) candles stands appropriately in the foreground and the Blot peers hungrily from an upper window.

Prasises De Miller Burlesque

Two illustrations by J. O. Whedon are also contributions. The first, a caricature of winged Mercury perched on a fire-plug with beckoning finger, is entitled "Hey! Taxi!" and the other, drawn in collaboration with Cannon, represents a "Design for a Hall Closet by Cecil B. de Mille". The palatial proportions of the chamber featured are a perfect burlesque upon the grandeur so dear to the heart of the cinema producer. It is to be hoped that the President-elect of the Lampoon will continue the contribution generiously to the pages of the publication for which he will be responsible.

One notable deficiency of the Lampoon is its lack of good light verse. The ballades rondeanx, triolets, and villanelles which are characteristic of other college publications are hore completely lacking.

There is, to be sure, one "Ballade of the South Seas" which in its initial stanzas gives every promise of being a chaming and polished poem, and whose envoi turns out to be the epitome of quintessential vulgarity. It is as though the author had originally written the poem for his own pleasure and had later altered it to suit the demands of a comie supplement. Why the Lampoon editors should insists that verses be "humorous" rather than possible and well-turned is more than we can understand.

Page 327 Suggests Scribner's

Perhaps the pleasantest and most genuinely satisfactory page of the entire issue is number 327 with its untitled verses in mood of pastoral reminiscence and the facily accompanying sketches by "G. C." The naive simplicity of the illustrations suggests a last century copy of "Scribners" or "Out look" with its rabbits, daisies and butterflies, and certainly the stanzas are attractive by contrast with this winter of our discontent:

"When marrow chills beneath the driving sleet

And drear confinment dulls our feeble brains,

Somewhere the carefree bathe their idle feet

In pools of soft warm dust on country lanes."

More of these would be a welcome substitute for awkward drawings by ham artists copied with two line jokes cribbed from the files of "Captain Billy's Whis Bang."

It is not as though Mr. Cook's regime was typified by the Lampoon at hand. We have bull-baitings and yokel-bumpings aplenty to testify to the enterprise characteristic to the board for the last year. Certainly no issue of any college humorous publication ever attracted the nation-wide attention secured by the famous suppressed edition of last spring, nor were the gendarmerie of any community ever so satisfactorily exposed as were the copys of Cambridge upon that memorable occasion.

It may be that the unhappy season of vacations and midyears affected the editors of the Lampoon while preparing this particular number. But at all events, something should be done about it