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Who Is Raymond M. Hill Anyway?

by T. Jaques

Well, who is Raymond M. Hill anyway? He's the new nemesis of students, that's who. The conscience of the community and the tax-payers' friend.

Joining the elite band of nigglcrs whose gems appear with some regularity in the correspondence columns of our daily papers, this gallant epistolizer has established himself as a leading authority on the subject of students.

At least three times in as many months Mr Raymond M. Hill of Wellington has Messed the editors of our papers with an up-to-date bulletin on the latest short-comings of students.

The opening of Parliament demonstration, an event not noted for the objectivity of its news coverage, was apparently too much for the worthy Mr Hill who wrote to The Dominion; "Time was when anyone with a University education was regarded as possessing qualities far in advance of those of his fellow man lacking that education.

"Nowadays any reference to students invariably centres on disgust at their aptitude to present thmselves, more often than not, as slovenly, disruptive, rowdy troublemakers."

Advocating the instant expulsion of all those involved, (and who's to tell), he said "Let their place be taken by those who are prepared to justify the ever-increasing taxpayers money diverted to house and educated them in surroundings and conditions unknown to their worthy predecessors (sic) of a generation or two ago."

When Canterbury students proposed a contraceptive vending machine on campus, the good Mr Hill instantly dispatched an impassioned missive to the editor of Riddiford's Rag.

"It is time a searching enquiry was made into every facets of student activities,' he said; a tall order already—but there's more to come—"And one and all who are not solely interested in serious study, or prepared to measure up to clearly defined standards of conduct (?) or propositions for their tutorial advancement be debarred from benefiting from all university tuition."

"Heaven knows," he said knowledgably, "enough public money is poured into these institutions without it being frittered (new word for it) away on elements capable of propounding this latest suggested outlet for their personal impulses."

Mr Raymond H. Hill then turned his perceptive gaze and incisive pen to adulation of compulsory military service until the student demonstration at the showing of "The Green Berets" provided him with yet another opportunity to allow Wellington's public the benefit of his immortal prose on the subject of nasty students.

Turning his attention this time to the Evening Post he wrote; "If ever there was justification for a certain section of our youthful community (guess who) being unceremoniously tossed into the authoritarian atmosphere of an army training camp and] given a thorough lambasting in rigid discipline and controlled behaviour it was given during a recent screening of "The Green Berets".

"The opening half of this film was shattered under a continuous barrage of shouted obscenities, filthy abuse, and disgustingly vulgar noises from a group of brazen, cocky louts obviously for the express purpose of doing just this, regardless of the presence in the audience of women and children.

"My congratulations to the theatre manager for stopping the show and trying to inject some degree of mentality into their shamelessly vacuous heads," said Raymond mond M. Hill esq.

"My congratulations would be the greater had he ordered the entire theatre to be evacuated. Elements such as these" (theatre managers?) "are a disgrace to themselves and are repugnant to every decent-minded citizen."

Apparently Mr Hill counts himself among these admirable people.

Despite his vivid description of the events in the theatre, obviously gleaned from press reports, he has made one great error. The noise and disruption did not only last for the first half hour; it lasted through the entire performance. Let's hope Mr Hill will get his facts right next time.