Epic Epidermic

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To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Harvard has long boasted the oldest and worst gymnasium in the country. It rarely boasts about having the filthiest one. That's a pity, since it could so boast without the slightest danger of ever being challenged.

One does not like to wash dirty linen in public, but enough is enough. The condition of Hemenway would hardly be fitting for an abbatoir. Nor are the results far to seek. If the man next to you in class wears a mask of diseased flesh, he is a wrestler who lost a bout to one or several of the loathsome skin infections that roam at large in our gymnasium. And if, presently you wear a similar mask, though you never went within a block of Hemenway, it just goes to prove that rumour is not the only thing that spreads. Some day the bugs will take that gymnasium up by the roots and walk off with it. Let us hope they walk soon and far.

It is rather strange that an institution, theoretically self-respecting, should care to maintain such a breeding place for corruption. I wonder if the doctors who condemn Freshmen to "corrective exercise" know what Hemenway is like?

Call this a grudge letter if you so desire. Anyone who considers the grudge unwarranted has my permission to go and rub himself on Hemenway and see how he likes the result. All I did was wrestle there for half an hour. That was a month ago and I am still trying to get rid of my little cargo of bugs. If I get blood poisoning and offer up an arm to the great god Impetigo, then I'm a martyr, I suppose. I'd rather have the arm.

Yes, this is a grudge letter; and I hereby award myself the liberty of adding my name to the list, already long, of those who wouldn't enter you patrified establishment again for a thousand dollars. Thanks for the buggy ride, Harvard,   M. M. Atwater, '26.