DOUBLES OR QUITS?

Not very long ago the drama depended almost invariably on a single situation. Whether the play were comedy, tragedy, farce, or musical play, the plot hinged on one time-honored convention--the compromising of a woman's honor. Compromised how? Surely you remember: by being "found in a man's rooms." Not room; rooms; it sounded more sinister. Maybe she just wanted an egg and which; maybe she really was interested in etchings maybe she was boring her host to death, and he, to get rid of her, asked her to do this dreadful thing he knew no lady would dream of doing, and she fooled him. After she had been found there, as of course she was--trust the playwright for that!--by her husband, father, fiance, brother, or by any member of the cast except one of the servants,--after being so found, it was conventionally assumed by the audience that her honor was no more. She was "a gone coon," and the play could continue. In other words, it was not going there that compromised her, it was being caught there.

To find the old stock situation cropping up again at Cambridge, in a play directed by such an old hand as John Harvard, is a little amusing. The College rules have never, of course, permitted ladies, singly or in droves, to enter a College dormitory unescorted, and then only in the afternoon. The new rule is worded thus: "Students living in the Houses will be given permission to entertain ladies in their rooms (there it is again!) without a chaperone only if there are two or more ladies present." This not only answers the old riddle, "When is a lady not a lady?" (Answer: "When she's a chaperone"), but flings a challenging glove into the ladies' very teeth, Females have never treated with much respect man-made rules intended to control their activities. Mark our words, until this restriction is removed, there'll be breaking and entering on the part of single, defiant misses, till the students scream for help. Far-sighted, clear-eyed youth--no wonder they are opposed to the new rule! Harvard Alumni Bulletin.