SEX AND SMUT AT SIX

Recent activities of the Cambridge Board of Censors and the Postmaster indicate that all forces are being brought to bear to eliminate pruriency from this fair city. They have taken vigorous, concerted action on issues in the past, indicating that their honourable positions are to be taken seriously, that they not only have the power, but the inclination to regulate the morals of less puritanical Cantabridgians. Since they have demonstrated that they intend to leave no stone unturned to keep the collective Cambridge Mind free from hampering vulgarity, whether it will or no, it is only fitting that new menaces, insidiously working their way into the very warp and woof of Cambridge life, which, in their manifold duties they have probably overlooked, be pointed out to them.

An organization calling itself The Fal-staff Press has flooded the mails with illustrated advertisements of sex books, clothed in the dignity of the quintosyllabic word Pornographia. This pornographia, it is stated, is intended only for esoteric adults. Despite this no doubt worthy intention there are few undergraduates who have not been offered thousands of dollars worth of the world's rare sex literature for a mere pittance. More recently the Maxwell Droke publishing company has advertised through the channels of Uncle Sam's mails a book of verse designated as "What not to recite at little Eleanor's party." What not to recite at little Eleanor's party is obviously not suitable material for the respectable Cambridge breakfast table.

A more local, and far more disturbing infringement on the moral atmosphere of Copperthwaite Street, is personified in one Charles Breen. Breen, affectionately termed the Proprietor of Parke and Tilford's by his Dunster House acquaintances, partakes freely of intoxicating potations at periodic intervals. Under the influence of demon rum, he invariably gives vent to his superfluous enthusiasm by standing on Copperthwaite Street at six o'clock in the morning, summoning all the vocal power at his command, and calling out random remarks concerning the intelligence, habits, and ancestry of Dunster men in particular, Harvard men more generally, and all college students in the final analysis. When his sister attempts to lead him back into his dwelling he is equally vociferous in his remarks concerning her virginity and occupation.

The Cambridge Board of Censors and the good Postmaster may well turn their attention to these crying situations when the urgent business which now engages them is somewhat lessened in volume.