Judgment Is Not Reserved

The regularity with which, when a new issue of your demure little journal comes out, the hoi polloi say "rotten" or "worse than the last," impels me to spring to your defence. I have missed no issue since Vol. 1 No 1, dated August 12th, 1930, and consequently am in a position to say that at no time has "Smad" been so up-to-date. Indeed, each new issue is more up-to-date than the last.

The almost universal condemntion of "Smad" might be tre were it packed with doubtful humour. But there are never more than one or two examples in any issue. I would even say that "Smad" does without humour altogether. For example, the advertisement of Mr. Blank Blank in your last issue was written by somebody entirely laking in a sense of humoiur. That is as it should be in a paper which, like the "Woman's Page" of the local press, is suitable for domestic use.

Your editorials—are they rotten? Decidedly not. Your are careful to put so little in them. Their terms are of the strictest conventionality. They could offend nobody, not even momentarily distract, for they seldom criticise. How can articles so vitally green be termed rotten? Green?—say rather pale pink, for they are not red. And you have done splendidly in abolishing the Cockpit, in which ungentlemanly students disagreed with one another and bit the hand that fed them, our dear old Alma Mater. Opiniativeness among students is impertinence, dear "Smad", I was delighted to notice an absence of it in your Plunket Medal report.

I love your verses—they are such good prose. And your prose is so prosy. Above all, I love the spirit of true Victorianism that animates your pages, so dignified, aloof, cautious, ladylike, and restrained. Keep respectable, "Smad," by excluding anything that might annoy, amuse, interest, or provoke; in short, anything likely to pander to undisciplined tastes or capricious fancies. Your readers are here to learn, not to play. Give them "Foreign News" to show them that their College is not worthy of interest—it will bring them to their senses.

Above all, watch out for libel. Pretty nearly anything can be libellous, except, of course, advertisements. Can you print another good one about funeral parlours? Please.