The Woman Pays

Dear "Spike,"—I wish to protest with all the strength and fervour that in me lies, against the hopelessly one-sided and unfair victimisation of the women of the College that is evident in the letter in your last number signed "Sorrowing Graduate"—obviously some morbid male of less taste than bumptiousness. I presume his letter is partly an attempt at humour—the portentous humour of a professor, the heavy-footed pseudo-agility of an elephant jumping through a hoop—a pitiful sight that one could regard with nothing but regret were it not that such wrongness must provoke anger.

Your correspondent is moved to alarm and ridicule at the sight of one or two young girls at the beginning of the year whose discretion had not so far outrun their years as to force them to put up their hair. "Sorrowing Graduate's" modesty is offended, forsooth, at the sight of so many maidenly tresses exposed at length in the only natural and fitting way; he prefers them crammed in a perhaps unhandsome knot at the back of the neck. Far be it from me to defend these poor girls who have dared to penetrate the sacred recesses of "Sorrowing Graduate's" tearstained University; no doubt they have no right, on the score of age and wisdom, let alone mode of hairdressing, to approach the holy portals. But are there none of the other sex open to a corresponding weight of blame? Are all the young men of V.U.C. of

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a fit age and dignity to be entrusted with membership of a University? Do they, in brains, virtue, and outward appearance, hirsute and sartorial, lend the stamp of an impressive worth to the place they grace with their patronage, or do they not? "Sorrowing Graduate" is scandalised by a wisp of hair; I can remember seeing with my own eyes a boy in shorts (I think he wore what is known as a Norfolk suit) taking lectures not so many years ago. He was no young genius, either. Heaven knows how he got here. And, "Spike," I am informed on credible authority, that the late Secretary of the Tramping Club (which, by the way, has been receiving far too much attention in your pages lately) has been in the habit of roaming around the College looking more like a Boy Scout than a rational being—and once at least even penetrated into the Library in that guise.

Now, "Spike," if there is to be mud-slinging, why not sling it impartially? We women doubtless have our faults, but men (even Graduates) equally have theirs. There is plenty of room for reform in V.U.C. We don't mind being reformed; but let it, be with tolerance, moderation, and fairness. And let our sorrowing young graduates drop their tears into a phylactery and not. into the pages of the "Spike."—I am, etc.,

Justitia.