Mending Wall

When the Lampoon's Great Hall became vulnerable to seasonal showers, and editors began to wear galoshes in the building, the more perspicacious Poonsters decided the roof was probably leaking. In an attempt to divert a disastrous spring flood, editors are pushing workers to their utmost. The original tiles are thrown at passers-by with reckless abandon, and now cold, dull slates are replacing the expensive Flemish tile roofing.

This seems rather akin to replacing the present White House with one of simulated clapboard. If the old motley red and orange roof was not especially beautiful, it did have character and an air of devil-may-care. But the new grey suggests only a drab conventionality which will mar the graceful, happy lines of Cambridge's oddest building. And it may also have the effect of reducing the high plane of Lampoon writing to a drab, humorless style. Witness the March issue.

There are two ways to save the tiles, and therefore the Lampoon. Having immense popular appeal, the editors could make a plea for donations to buy another identical set of tiles. Such a plan would have every chance of success: it would make people believe the Lampoon is poverty stricken. But if a great many persons in the University do not care about the Lampoon's financial status, there is another, more sure fire plan, entailing only the cost of a few cheap umbrellas. Lampoon men could hold meetings not in the Great Hall, but above it, on the distinctive Flemish tiles. There they could laugh, and at the same time learn that a writer's lot is hardship and wet feet.