DE MORTUIS NIHIL NISI BONUM

Life, after all, is but a succession of surprises, a concatenation of cataclysms-so the CRIMSON is not as disconcerted by the sudden demise of Harvard's humorous periodical-the Lampoon-as it would be had it less experience in the ways of the world. Yet in a university so much a part of American tradition the death of any particularly notorious feature of university life must occasion serious and thoughtful comment.

For fifty years "Lampie" has done its best to sate the appetites of lovers of Punchian wit. And now that the gods of finance have doomed it to oblivion, the CRIMSON will not be alone in regretting the passage of a bird so rare as the famed Ibis of Mt. Auburn Street. For the patriarchal purveyors of discretion whose efforts at enforcement have recently disturbed these young Benchleys in their better moments will feel the loss even more keenly than Lampie's more firmly established contemporaries. And many a lonely subscriber whose diet for years has consisted of the Transcript, the Atlantic, and the Lampoon will turn in desolation to muted memories of merrier days.

The Lampoon, indeed, has too long served the American public with clean humor and clean advertising with all those fundamental forces in salient satire and irresistible irony to die uncherished and unwept. From coast to coast those who have followed Lample will mourn their departed leader. Life itself will be without a parent; Mother Advocate without a son. The entire nation will mourn this departed jester royal-this wanton wit and boisterous bard.

So the CRIMSON has reason to be sad. Yet, after all, as Shakespeare aptly rimed-"Imperial Caesar dead and turned to clay can't stop a hole to keep the wind away". Another will undoubtedly take the place so long maintained by the followers of the Ibis. Indeed, the communication in this column is greatly at variance with the opinion of the CRIMSON in the matter. Though well able to cooperate with the Advocate in financing the bankrupt publication, the CRIMSON fears that any such move will but add to Lampie's already over heavy lead of debts. And it is against sound business principles to attempt the financially impossible. Yet there is no reason why some attempt should not made to restore to Harvard her fountain of folly. Therefore, any attempt to create a successor will receive all possible assistance from the CRIMSON and no doubt from the Advocate as well.

"Yorick is dead" those words have sounded down the centuries. And it is with sincere chagrin that the devoted readers of the Lampoon must echo them now. Yet perhaps, out of this debacle will come the experience needed to run an even more successful periodical. Phoenix-like another will rise from the ashes of Ibis to wing its witty way across the cerulean and appreciative heavens of a thankful Cambridge.