Review of Current Lampoon

It must be a pleasure to the Freshman whose first days in College have been all concerned with registrations, consultations, pink cards, yellow cards and the like, to see a Harvard tome (be it ever so slender) which bears on its cover so cheering a motto as

"Through all my days

I'll sing the praise.

Of brown October ale."

There is nothing to frighten the timid newcomer in the buskined jester who holds the foaming glass on high. His welcome is rousing. It is echoed, though less boisterously, in the first editorial, which is devoted to the Freshman class. One sentence in this editorial is significant as showing the profound insight of the present board into the condition of Lampoon humor. "To an honored few of you," speaks the oracle, "will undoubtedly come the honor of rejuvenating the Great University Comie." This prophecy so modestly expressed, may be only a pious hope; let us humbly pray, however, for its fulfillment. The writer of the editorial has expressed a divine truth. Rejuvenation is exactly the variety of transformation which, we should say, was the Lampoon's most crying need. We do not ask for great originality. The College field is too limited. We merely plead that some-one endeavor to lure from the verdant spirits who have not yet fallen under the hypnotic influence of the established and irresistibly comic sources of our University humor, some joke, some drawing, that does not deal with the polar seclusion of Conant and Perkins, the chill heart of Radcliffe, the square rimmed spectacles of the Dean, or the untold wealth of the CRIMSON.

Very ancient, indeed, and sometimes very flat, is the wit (N.B. "The Evolution of the Freshman's Letter Home"), yet the number is entertaining, nevertheless. "Mediaeval Gastronomy" is cleverly versified, and illustrated con amore. Even the account of the bold dash of Dr. Crook to the North Pole (now at last definitely located at Perkins Hall) though based on a joke never very funny and surely as old as the hall in question is undeniably amusing. As usual, the drawings are better than the other matter. The centre-page by Steel '11, is not only witty, but really refreshingly thoughtful. In a humorous way it points a moral which, with modifications, may be safely commended to Freshmen. There is a good conception, likewise in the drawing of "The Pioneers," greeting the rising sun of the new administration; and the movement of the silhouetted figures is excellent. The frontispiece by Williams '11 has a certain grim humor. The tail-piece is charming. As a whole, the number is conscientious; but unlike the gentleman on the cover, we have not split our sides laughing.