Communications.

EDITORS DAILY CRIMSON.- Having been taken to task in your columns, for a letter which I wrote day before yesterday, concerning the expenses of the University crew, I feel called upon to add a few words of explanation.

I can find nothing in my letter to authorize the interpretation that I thought your first editorial on this subject was intended to lessen the subscriptions to the crew. I have no doubt whatever that the article in question was written in perfectly good faith, and nothing was further from my thoughts, in replying to it, than impugning, in the least, the motives of its author. I only intended to point out the bad effects which such an article might have, and to counteract that effect so far as I was able.

In referring to your first article, I called it "inaccurate;" while, by your own admission, that adjective was not wholly inappropriate, I think, on the whole, I might better have used the word "misleading." When I used the word, I was thinking, not of the trivial blunder as to the cost of the "blazers," but to the rather broad and harsh clause in which it is said that the provision of such "luxuries" as "blazers," etc., "indicates a looseness in the handling of the crew money, which it would be well to investigate more closely." It may be true that such language reflects on nobody, but, if so, language has certainly lost all meaning.

The CRIMSON has seen fit to "carry the war into Africa," by making the assertion that I am "inaccurate and misleading in one of my most important statements." Let us see how far this will bear investigation: I said, "I think I am right when I say that more money is spent yearly on the Yale crew than on the Harvard crew." Not having the figures at hand to prove this assertion, I was very careful to qualify it so that it should carry no more weight than is ordinarily accorded to an expression of opinion or belief. I rested my belief on conversations I have had at various times with those who are connected with the Yale crew, in which I received the impression that Yale spent more money on her crew than does Harvard. Thus far I have seen nothing to alter my impression on this subject, although it is entirely possible that it is a mistaken one.

The figures contained in your last editorial prove nothing at all concerning the actual expenses of the Harvard crew, which you place, for last year at $8,236. Of this sum, a large portion came down as an indebtedness from the year before. Then, too, the money paid out by the Boat Club, is largely in excess of its actual expenditures. To explain this, it is necessary to speak briefly of the manner of keeping the accounts of the Boat Club. For the sake of simplicity, the annual report of the treasurer is a statement of all the money handed in to, and paid by, the Boat Club. In many of its money transactions, the Boat Club simply acts as an agent for others. For instance, when the crew goes to a training table, each member of the crew pays what he has been accustomed to pay for his board, and the Boat Club makes up the difference between this amount, and the amount charged at the training table. The crew pay their money to the treasurer of the Boat Club, who assumes the responsibility for the whole bill. The amount paid by the members of the crew must, of course, be deducted from the actual expenses of the Boat Club, although it appears for the sake of simplicity, as I have said, among the nominal expenses. The same may be said of various other expenses,- such as the full payment for prize flags, of which one half is borne by the other colleges;- expenses incurred on behalf of the class crews, and refunded by them, and c., and c. These nominal expenditures make the sum total of the expenses of the Boat Club seem, to one who is ignorant of the method of keeping the accounts, much larger than it really is.

I have touched upon this subject, not so much to sustain my opinion upon the relative expenses of the Harvard and Yale crews, which is, after all, of no very great importance, but in order to dispel an apparently prevalent opinion, that the money put down in the treasurer's reports as paid out, represents the actual running expenses for the year. It is this unfounded opinion, I feel confident, that has caused much of the misapprehension, and misunderstanding concerning the crew.

Feeling that I have nothing to change in the views I have already expressed concerning the advisabity of uniforming the crew, and apologizing for trespassing thus at length upon your space, I remain,

Your very respectfully,

LAWRENCE E. SEXTON.