SING WILLOW

Battening once more on the pre-whistle furor that invades dyed-in-the-wool grid iron followers on the occasion of every great game, ticket forgers have foisted off literal scores of false admission pasteboards on the West Point and Harvard public this week-end. It is not a new crime. It is not one that can be prevented. The law guardians may possibly overtake and trump two knaves, no more.

The immensely difficult thing to understand about such a Barnum harvest is the faith that guides college graduates year and again to succumb to a few whispered words and a brandished engraving. As traditionally gun-shy as the individual is who can afford fifty dollars for an hour's entertainment, the "con" men, the street-corner shysters, the alley speculators find him feeble when excluded by a Stadium wall. A trite fiction hoods a pillar of State Street. A hurried phrase woos a yellow back from a bond salesman. The racket flourishes as the bay tree.

Publicity is the sole weapon that cuts the forger's revenue. Unfortunately it is always wielded too late. There may be news in the fact that two days before, ninety-nine merchants and lawyers dropped several grand on bogus tickets but there is no solace if you are the hundredth.