Shocked.

In common with many students who can claim to have the best interests of the College at heart, I have been surprised and dismayed by the lack of taste displayed by certain members of the tennis club. These members of a club which has arrogated unto itself the right to dictate who shall play on the courts, and in what coloured costume have calmly proceeded to leap about the courts in abbreviated and scanty garb. I refer to these shorts as I believe they are called. Perhaps these people want to distract attention from the weaknesses in their game by their costume. If so they have certainly succeeded as many God-fearing people returning on Sundays from Divine Worship have been disgusted by the display of angular limbs.

The Students Association constitution definitely lays down that—"The field dress and badges of all members of sport clubs shall, before use be submitted to the Executive for approval." Presumably these people know this rule—certainly one frequent offender as a member of the Executive should know of its existence.

I am sure all reasonable people will join with me in asking the Executive to take stern disciplinary steps in regard to the offending club and its would-be smart members and teach them a well-deserved lesson in breeding, and thus remove this slur on the fair name of the College.

—"Not a Wowser."

Fresher Speaks.

As a fresher (I suppose freshmen are allowed to contribute to your time-honoured magazine) I would like to give my views on some of the College institutions.

First, the men's common room (very common as a rule!); Light is supplied by large windows flanked on one side by some antiquated curtains apparently the last of the old brigade. It is suggested that these curtains should be taken down and used to drape the skeleton in the Museum, or put into a glass case with a suitable inscription, such as: "Presented to the University by Queen Victoria for hanging in a Suitable Position." It is also suggested that Mr. Currie and the Natural History Society conduct a search to find the exact number of new species of bacteria existing among the dust in the Common Room furniture (or shall we say "suite"?). However, I think most of us would miss the old curtain, dust, furniture, cigarette butts, etc., if they were duly removed.

The remarks made by "Hungry" in a previous issue of "Smad" sum up the Cafeteria position rather neatly. When sustenance is needed between lectures (and it often is!) it is certainly rather a wrench to have to pay 3d. a cup for "stimulant." or 2d. a cup for tea. The only thing you have plenty of is sugar. Surely the Students' Association do not think these reasonable prices. Sixpence for two cups of coffee and fourpence for two cups of tea! To quote Byron, or, better still, Mae West (abridged). "They done us wrong!"

The Library struck me as being most efficiently managed, but the atmosphere seemed most oppressive. The place seemed as "dead" as a crystal set I made once.

"The Black Girl's Brother" Again.

An innocent, unsophisticated little nigger thanks Mr. Miller for his epistle on two of the attendant evils of authorship, but frankly admits that, in spite of all Mr. Miller's "irresistible longing" and "what-oh-ing," his soul is still intact.

Mr. Miller is truly a conundrum. He spends two-thirds of his letter in treating what he says is unimportant, and dismisses what he holds is important, together with my question, in seven lines! And to cap it all, he renders in conclusion two paragraps—one on Marxian Communism (which I made no pretension to support) and the other on a plea for mysticism. Further, in the course of his letter he assumes on no adequate grounds that I "advocate" atheism.

Mr. Miller misses the point of my argument in connection with the lamentable history of the Church. I will repeat it more simply for his benefit. The men who committed the atrocities a chronicle of which, as Mr. Miller says, can be found in "any thorough church history," were men who claimed to have encountered the "personal intervention of God in their lives." Now, if these men, all of whom had received this "personal intervention" could commit such crimes, are we not entitled to suppose that this "personal intervention" is not enough to reform the world?

And now, to please the irritated Mr. Miller—an unconditional confession—first my real name is Kabuish and I live in the Nuba mountains; and, secondly, the whole of this letter is taken verbatim from "An innocent . . . dictionary, from the Shorter Oxford Dictionary.

The Black Girl's Brother.

New Poems.

In reviewing "New Poems" for "Smad," I gave my own enthusiastic opinion, hoping that other people would get some idea of the verse from my review. But your correspondent "M.L." thinks there have been no poets since the English Lake poets, rebukes the writers of "New Poems" for not writing like the English Lake poets, and by implication chastises me for being perverse enough to like modern verse and to praise these young New Zealand poets because they are writing in modern idiom and about modern problems. Finding no beauty in any of the poetry of the last hundred years, "M.L." suggests that the poems I reviewed are inspired by "immorality in words, apocalypticism, and gallery play." To him, this may be a brave defence of the Romantic tradition of Beauty in Poetry. I'd call it merely bad manners.

Of course if I wanted to play personalities in the way. "M.L." does, I could point out that at least three of the poets of "New Poems" have written volumes of verse that have been highly praised in America and England; that one of these is the only New Zealand poet to be represented in Harold Monro's standard "Anthology of Twentieth Century Poetry" (Phoenix Library). As for the others, only a disgruntled bigot

Finally, a question: Has anyone ever managed to walk along a corridor without making an unearthly noise? If so, how would question their sincerity. "M.L." can take them or leave them. I'm sure nobody cares.

Frankenstein.

I don't want to bore "Smad" with a personal squabble about tastes in poetry. I think most people will agree that the poetry of the English Romantics comprises a magnificent portion in the English poetic heritage. But these poets lived a hundred years ago: their reactions and problems and conclusions about life, and the forms in which these found expression, were adequate for them; they no longer are for us, although, through their art, we gain appreciative insight into these.

The times change. A psychologist, or anyone who knows how intimately inter-connected are all of an individual's reactions, including poetic ones, and how closely these are bound up with life, will tell "M.L." that "Poetry for Poetry's sake" is an exploded doctrine which, as a matter of fact none of the poets he likes held to. Poets are people in the signal-towers of their time who can see what other people miss. So the writers of "New Poems," as I tried to show in my reviews, are responding to the triumph of the collective ideal over the Romantic individual one. I think if "M.L." is really concerned about poetry the will try to see this A.B.C. point.

A third party's remark on "New Poems" may be a propos. Mr. H. Winstone Rhodes, English lecturer at Canterbury College, said about the book in "To-morrow": "The publishers are to be congratulated upon this excellent venture . . . I should certainly recommend 'New Poems' as a valuable addition to our library of verse."

Alfred Katz.

Modest and Efficient.

"Bayard" brays hard in his dispraise of an Exec, that does its work modestly and efficiently, but decently fails to go chasing after the fleshpots of notoriety. Either the parfait knight has had a bad night or else the Stud. Ass. elections are within coo-ee. The tone of this "Truth" stuff that Bayard emits sounds suspiciously like pre-election propaganda. Is it designed to make straight the path of some young bounder who scents in Exec. office an opportunity for bringing his name prominently before all and sundry (particularly his employers) as the Vox Studentium of V.U.C.? The work of the Exec. is to execute the common will of the students, not to go publicity-mongering in their own interest under the pretext of sweetening the public, much less to be that pestilential nuisance of modern times, "a potent politically progressive, up-to-date body." If there is a Hitler in our midst who would like "to centralise" student opinion in himself, his presence has been indicated in, time, and we have now no excuse for failing to scrutinise carefully the personal proclivities, particularly the selfish ambitions, of any who offers, or contrives to have himself offered, for election this year, to that representative committee the competence of which has justly been measured in the past by the quietness and inconspicuousness with which its individual members have discharged their duties on behalf of the student body. Leave potent political progressiveness to the students. Bayard, whose multifarious club activities can quite properly compass this sort of thing, but refrain I beg of you, from yahooing at one of the best Executives we have ever had simply because they do not descend to noisy self-advertisement.

Bay Rum.