DEPLETED COLUMNS

Now that the letter-men have been determined and insignia awarded, marking the virtual close of the football season, athletics have again been forcibly subordinated in the daily papers to the more important topics of current events. Once more Mr. Hoover and the stock market have received due prominence on the front page; and the gestures of the Fascistic are no longer overshadowed by startling gridiron predictions. On the other hand, this is a period of unwarranted speculation on the part of sports writers. To fill their depicted columns, they fabricate grotesque stories of judicious phenomena; pictures of superhuman undertakings receive the appropriate comment of. "Believe it or not." A variety of topics, which represent at best a fertile imagination and laborious study, are thus glossed sufficiently to impress the reader with their plausibility as items of news.

Those who have been thus innocently deluded by the wiles of sport correspondents now herald with enthusiasm the opening of the hockey season tonight. The publication of starting lineups has already caused a stir; last minute changes may yet augment the intensity of the situation, Because they look for competent criticism of the very subjects which are on the tips of their tongues, athletic enthusiasts again find in the newspapers renewed satisfaction. Although the headlines are not as incongruously conspicuous as those of three weeks ago the articles are none the less convincing in the dearth of copy sextet supplants eleven and Garden replaces Stadium--if not quite so perfectly as could be desired at least adequately.