THE BAN ON BANNERS.

There are few more appalling, pernicious, and thoroughly reprehensible tendencies in modern times than banner bearing. In the light of modern investigation we clearly see that the young man in Longfellow's poem, "Excelsior," who bore a "banner with a strange device," was a dangerous fellow, who richly deserved to be lost among the snowy peaks, banner and all; that Betsy Ross should have devoted her time to knitting mufflers; that Barbara Freitchie was a foolish lady to risk her old gray head; in short that banners should be scrupulously eschewed -- especially red ones.

The CRIMSON (or the Heliotrope-Mauve as it is shortly to be renamed) approves the reform movement that would surpress all banners--beginning, of course, with red ones.

Red symbolizes blood, and claret and tomato catsup and strawberry-blondes--all dangerous.

But why stop there.

Take black which stands for death and gun-powder and printer's ink. And orange which stands for gold, the root of all evil. Princeton's flag must disappear before the march of civilization.

Then there is Yale's banner. Blue signifies despair and the dank, destructive deep. It must go.

The sea must change its hue; the roses must reform; the Titian-locked must consult a dyer; the robin must buy a new vest; we must learn to blush a pea green. Color is being legislated out of existence.

But as long as the banner-bearing habit is checked by this reform, some good has been accomplished, without doubt.