This is a terrible thought, but suggests a convenient alibi for other errant citizens. Thus we may read the following NEWS NOTES:

Benjamin W. Gleam, age forty-two, of 1946 Ruby Avenue, The Bronx, was arrested last night for appearing in the Late Byzantine Room of the Museum of Fine Arts clad only in a suit of medium-weight underwear. When questioned Gleam said that he had seen so many pictures in the newspaper advertisements of respectable men and women going about in their underwear, drinking tea, jumping hurdles and holding family reunions, that he simply couldn’t stand it any longer, and had to try it for himself. “The newspapers did it,” he is quoted as saying.

Mrs. Leonia M. Eggcup, who was arrested yesterday on the charge of bigamy, issued a statement today through her attorneys, Wine, Women and Song.

“I am charged with having eleven husbands, all living in various parts of the United States,” reads the statement. “This charge is correct. But before I pay the extreme penalty, I want to have the public understand that I am not to blame. It is the fault of the press of this country. Day after day I read the list of marriages in my morning paper. Day after day I saw people after people getting married. Finally the thing got into my blood, and although I was married at the time, I felt that I simply had to be married again. Then, no sooner would I become settled in my new home, than the constant incitement to further matrimonial ventures would come through the columns of the daily press. I fell, it is true, but if there is any justice in this land, it will be the newspapers and not I who will suffer.”

XXX—HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

As a pretty tribute to that element of our population which is under twenty-two years of age, these are called “the Holidays.”

This is the only chance that the janitors of the schools and colleges have to soak the floors of the recitation halls with oil to catch the dust of the next semester, and while this is being done there is nothing to do with the students but to send them home for a week or two. Thus it happened that the term “holidays” is applied to that period of the year when everybody else is working just twice as hard and twice as long during the week to make up for that precious day which must be lost to the Sales Campaign or the Record Output on Christmas Day.