The Crass Menagerie

Animals are nice, dogs especially nice. Ask anyone they'll tell you the dog is nicest of all. Man's best friend in fact, or so they say. We think dogs are nice, too, nice in the home, before the roaring mid-December hearth, playing with the children. But dogs snarling at depositors in the Cambridge Trust are hard to take, and St. Bernards who challenge the road-rights of Massachusetts Avenue automobiles and pedestrians hardly help solve the problem of traffic in the Square.

Cats are nice too, less popular perhaps than their canine friends, possibly colder, less affectionate, but nice all the same. Beautiful, too, so clean, soft, agile, so pleasant when they purr. Of course black cats are the object of no little disdain, but we like them too. Still, a Harvard House is scarcely their proper place, and House dining halls are far too frequently targets of feline invasions.

Yes, animals are nice, particularly nice for little kids, but they seem much nicer than they are. All nice things have their limits. Cambridge animals are taking too many liberties; Cambridge citizens are becoming second-class animals. This trend must stop.

Harvard has always maintained a sane policy regarding animals: it educates some and excludes the rest. Cambridge would do well to meditate on this sage example. In all justice it should consider an "off-limits" area for four-footed beasts. Or it could plan a zoo--maybe in Mem Hall or in the Fly Club garden. Whatever the means, this animal threat must be answered. Massive retaliation may indeed be in order.