Announcement Extraordinary!

With its next number "The Spike" will have completed the 21st year of its existence. This is an important event. The coming of age of a human being is celebrated with special rejoicings, and with good reason; for the youth, hitherto in leading-strings, is now able to commit a burglary or a murder on his own initiative, without asking the parental permission and blessing. This has undoubted advantages. How much more so, then, for a magazine, especially a college magazine, doomed from birth to a chequered existence, living from hand to mouth; its whole life a series of desperate crises and hairbreadth rescues from death by starvation! The human child is generally brought up on some ordered system; in most cases its welfare is directed by the same authority for the whole of its infancy; but your magazine, indiscriminately fathered and mothered by a Students' Association (incorporated—can a corporation truly love?), entrusted to the care of an annually changing committee of nurses, who have rarely had experience or training in scientific baby-management—what chance does it stand of surviving through a lusty youth to a sound and healthy maturity? Does it have the advantage of being fed with its natural food every four hours, day and night? Do benevolent doctors give lectures on its welfare and advancement to the Y. W.C. A.? Do a corps of skilled assistants weigh it, examine it, prescribe for it, at stated intervals?—So with "The Spike." It was brought into the world a remarkably promising' child; it has had on the whole a fairly healthy life ever since; but there have been periods when its condition has been a matter of grave concern. Breath has come sobbingly page 13 —pulse has beat low. This has usually happened with the preparation of the second number for the year.

This year we want to give a birthday party. We do not want it to be an exclusive affair, either in guests or in entertainment. We want to have a Cake. Fruit Salad. Trifle. Cream. Good homely sandwiches. Sweets. Coffee. Champagne—(Of course this is meant to be taken in a purely metaphorical and literary sense.) Very well—it is manifestly impossible for an Editorial Committee to provide all this feast of glory, even if they were more talented cooks than they are. As a matter of fact we want it to be more like a College tea—those who can bring food, those who can't, bring cash to pay for it. But everybody comes—or ought to. Therefore: will every student or past student who has ever contributed or thought of contributing to "The Spike" make a special effort to write his or her best for the next number, to appear at the end of September? We want to see all the old initials at the bottom of the contributions—and many new ones. This is important. Spread the news around. The invitation is allembracing. No questions asked. Come as you are. But let the food you bring be spiced with wit and seasoned with wisdom. It doesn't matter what sort it is—complimentary birthday odes, frail diaphanous lyrics, articles on any subject under the sun, letters—even limericks. College appetites have a catholic appreciation. But don't hesitate. We want all this stuff by the end of August; so whether you live on the spot, or anywhere from the North Cape to the Bluff, let us have your contribution to the festivities as soon as possible. The season of the year is usually given up to examinations, and weeping and wailing; let us be happy this once. "The Spike" will never again have a twenty first birthday. So remember—and come up to scratch with a cheerful smile and an open hand.

Read this through once again, lest you forget.