Page:The New Yorker 0003, 1925-03-07.pdf/6

4 F a play jury induced a dirty play to leave a theatre, that wouldn't be news; but if a dirty play induced a play jury to leave a theatre, that would be news.

Burning witches at the stake was a grand sport in its day and much more sportsmanlike in some respects than the modern game of censorship. In the old days, when you accused a witch of causing boils, you not only had to produce the witch in court, but you had also to produce the boils. Nowadays, when you accuse a play of being "degrading," all you have to show the jury is the play. Even the editors of the World failed to tell us how much they had been degraded by "A Good Bad Woman." They seemed to think that all that would be taken for granted, and apparently it was.

We suggest the study of a little pamphlet by Theodore Shroeder, entitled "Obscenity and Witchcraft." Shroeder maintains that, inasmuch as obscenity exists in the mind of the looker, and not in the thing looked at, it is futile to pass judgment on the thing. If we really want to punish obscenity, he suggests, it is a simple problem. If anybody finds any- thing obscene in a hook, a picture or a play, just put him in jail.

Commissioner Enright's special assignment men reported that thirteen current plays were "bad," If we were policemen and couldn't find more than thirteen plays that are not only bad but downright worthless we would turn in our badges.

Perhaps the play jury will be known as the Shock Exchange.

THE NEW YORKER refuses to jeer at the news from Kansas. We think we understand. It took years of hard effort on the part of the Kansas Y. M. C. A. to enact the law prohibiting the sale of cigarettes. Then came the war, in which the Y. M. C. A. convinced all true Kansans that it was their Christian duty to furnish cigarettes for the soldiers. Kansas was never known to shirk its duty.

It has never lost its passion to prohibit things, however, but been difficult ever since to decide just what to prohibit. The Legislature has been known to stall along for weeks at a time without seriously interfering with the people's habits.

Music is front page stuff at last, for has not Signor Gigli tossed Frau Jeritza for a row of footlights? Baron von Popper offers diplomatic but significant hints concerning protection for his wife, and Signor Gigli's secretary disavows bellicose intentions. Meanwhile, hundreds of laymen are beginning to take interest in opera. Otherwise many of these converts to art might have been seen trying to buy tickets for “Tosca" at the offices of Tex Rickard.

Tex Rickard, incidentally, is going to move the name "Madison Square Garden" to his new arena uptown. But we have a lively hope that he will not be able to move the smell—that cumulative and combined essence of elephant, fight fan, dog and delegate.

Brigadier General William Mitchell may not be the Army's and Navy's best friend, but he is unquestionably their severest critic.

"I should try to make my home the center of my daughter's pleasures. And I would get acquainted with the boys she knew and gently and painlessly eliminate the unit." ---Dorothy Dix, in the Evening Post. Bore them to death, probably.

New York has recently seen fierce conflict between Mothers Stone and Goose, renewed hostilities on the Jeritza-Gigli front and the siege of Budlong. What this town needs is an arms cut parley.

Among the many pleasant things we wish young Paulina Longworth is that by the time she reaches newspaper-reading age the affairs of W. E. D. Stokes will have been settled.

We have our More Serious Moments. At present we are working on an invention—a measure larger than a bushel—so that some of our younger geniuses may be able to hide their lights.

No one can imagine our relief upon reading the report of the Department of Agriculture that oysters have been "successfully tamed." Why, only the other night on the way home....