"THE CHAINS ARE OFF--"

The hosannas that greeted the passing of the anti-convivial Jones Law are slowly fading into groans of despair as the repeal of the "Meanings" clause of the book censorship code daily nears realization. That good old institution whereby the youth of Boston has been preserved from the contaminating influence of modern literature is tottering on the edge of oblivion. The virgin purity of the children that so blithly play about the Frog Pond is now laid open to the nefarious advances of "unfit" literature.

The proud duenna of the city, the Watch and Ward Society, sees her protege slipping from her firm grasp, but there is always that inevitability of fate, the stumbling block of so many good intentions. The excellent reputation that it succeeded in winning for itself by uncovering the wicked snares of Henry Mencken several years ago has apparently been forgotten. But it does not weep alone. Book sellers and publishers whose wares it was the custom of the society to call to the attention of the public will have to seek other means of attaining the hallowed pages of the Evening Transcript. And what is worse, the ready spice of polite dinner conversations will now be salted down with the trivialities of unassisted literary search. As for the adolescents of the city, they will again be reduced to a meticulous investigation of the dictionary and other of the standard and immemorial stimuli. But the die is cast, and Joyce is about to cross the Charles.