St Hugh's College, Oxford - The Imp, Mar 1931

THE IMP MARCH, 1931

Editorial

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\TEN the high arts have their fashions. Last term we had occasion to deplore the poverty of material submitted to us. But it seems that we were unjust. It was merely a period of transition. The popular mode of expression was undergoing a profound change. This term the process is complete ; the facetious article, the melaricholy story, the bitter or incomprehensible poem have shrunk to almost negligible dimensions or been squeezed out altogether, and genius has blossomed forth in a profusion of illustrations.

The prize in this competition goes to Miss Henderson, for which among the many charming pictures with which she has sprinkled this number we leave it to our readers to decide ; for us it would be invidious to discriminate.

Miss Temple's drawings were fully appreciated, but unfortunately they were technically unsuitable for reproduction.

The ' Spring Ode in the Modern Manner ' competition proved popular.

After some discussion we decided that the poem by ' 5,' now. entitled ' Moonlight,' but originally submitted as ' Spring—A Nightpiece,' was not eligible, in spite of its author's assurance that in the very best modern poems the title has nothing whatever to do with the subject matter. The prize goes to Miss Green.

There were no entries for the third competition. Evidently our readers know nothing of Proctorial Encounters—a happy note on which to end our Swan Song.

Miranda (All the characters in this story are entirely fictitious.)

I was looking forward to seeing Miranda again. She had not written t,) me during my ten years' exile in Tasmania, yet we had been great friends at college: Beautiful and dazzlingly clever, Miranda had left Oxford covered with glory, after having taken a double first in Greats and Science.

A dangerous combination, I felt, for Miranda was a woman whose brain was too large for her to cope with. She was intoxicated by her own brilliance and utterly unable to control it. At college she had always been

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considered a little odd,' but she was, popular all the same, amongst those who were not afraid of her. Many were. It was not so much her almost uncanny cleverness as her utter independence of personal relationships, which made her appear a little inhuman. Fascinated by the mysteries of the universe and of her own mind, Miranda was not interested in other people, as a rule. Yet she could be a delightful companion when the occasion demanded, and, as I said before, we had been good friends till the end.

I made my way laboriously up the hill where they told me Miranda lived. It was very high and bleak, and covered with grass of a hideous yellow-green hue that spoke of undrained peat. The sky was heavily overcast, and a cold drizzle made still more dismal this already desolate spot.

The path, damp and slippery, twisted round ledges of bare rock. Here and there a sickly sheep provided the only sign of vitality. How like Miranda to live on the top of a mountain ! ' I thought. And how like her to make her husband live there too ! ' I wondered how anyone could have been rash enough to marry her. Yet Miranda was a woman who got what she wanted and it was all according to schedule. I remembered her saying on her first night in college : 1928 Oxford, '32 go down, '33 rest, '34 marry, '35 • • After all, it was not surprising. She must have been married seven years now. Her son would be six . . . Sebastian he was going to be called.

But I had reached the top of the hill. Before me was a small house— reassuringly ordinary at first sight, until one suddenly realised its grotesque inappropriateness. It was a modern garden-city villa, immaculately tiled, with tall chimneys and fantastic window-boxes—here in the wilds !

Miranda greeted me joyfully. Lobelia, how lovely to see you ! Whatever made you come ? ' Curiosity,' I replied, giving the only answer that would be intelligible to her. Now let me look at you ! ' Yes, she was strangely altered. Still beautiful, but paler than before, with a frightening lack of expression in her once brilliant green eyes. When we talked I noticed a cold lifelessness in her voice. All her old wit and laughter had vanished, and instead there was an immense weight of listlessness in her conversation. ' It is funny to see people again,' she said.

I have lived here for five years, seeing almost no one.'

But your husband? ' Oh, yes, he is here, and of course my son Sebastian.'

And your neighbours? ' Dull-witted peasants with whom we have no wish to be acquainted.

Besides, they think we are mad.'

I felt strangely afraid. There was something creepy ' about Miranda that gave me a feeling of tightness in the throat. Perhaps 'She was mad . . .

Yes, I am ! ' she replied, startlingly. But it is better to be mad . . . you can see . . . further. Sanity is a disease. It has spread like a plague over the civilised world. It is the creeping paralysis of the mind.'

I was terrified. How had she read my thoughts? I gripped my chair with trembling fingers. Then Miranda laughed—her old sane laugh, and my fears vanished.

I was not thought-reading or being psychic in any way,' she explained. ` It was pure deduction. I behave oddly. I say people think I am mad. You think, inevitably, " Perhaps she is." I reply " So I am." Could anything be more obvious? Never mind,' she went on ; we will have something to eat. I knew you were coming, so I got some food in.'

Don't you usually have food ? '

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' No, we live on concentrated extract. FOODEX. One bottle lasts the family a month. Here it is.' She produced a small green bottle from her pocket. A dessertspoonful every other day is all Valentine and I require.

Sebastian has a teaspoonful.'

Miranda busied herself in preparing a tea of the good old Oxford variety : crumpets and toast, jam, gingerbread and cakes. ' But . . . you should not have bothered . . . for me. I could easily have had a saltspoonful of your mixture,' I added, rather unconvincingly. Besides, how did you know I was coming ? '

int Miranda,' I enquired seriously, ` do you ever take any exercise?'

Why, of course,' she replied, but I take it in tabloids,'

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' I dreamt it the night before last.'

But how did you know ? ' My dear Lobelia,' she continued scornfully, don't pretend you have never heard of serialism. Surely you understand that our dreams are equally compounded of past and future experiences? Well, by living a life so uneventful that it practically has no past, I have enabled myself to live in my dreams almost entirely in the future. Consequently, since the past is nothing worth mentioning and the future is always known in advance, I have no practical problems and very few activities. I devote myself entirely to contemplation and to the invention of methods of overcoming the obstacles to contemplation. I do nothing.'

But the house? ' I -have a servant. She is deaf, dumb and half-witted. Consequently very efficient. Besides, we have every modern convenience. Labour-saving devices were invented for imbeciles.'

And Sebastian ? ' No trouble. According to the psychologists, the very last person who can be of any use to a child is his mother. I scarcely ever speak to him. It would be highly dangerous to do so.'

But . . . why have a child? ' Oh, Life Force, you know. Besides, it has taken as many million ages as the world has existed to produce me, and I feel it would be ingratitude to my ancestors not to perpetuate myself.'

I munched my crumpet in silence. Miranda ate nothing. She sat gazing at the ceiling, her chin up and her hair thrown back—tense yet listless. A strange mixture of weariness and fanaticism that was painful to behold.

What do you contemplate? ' I asked.

Chiefly methods of breaking down the barrier which divides the Past from the Future. In other words, the Elimination of the Present.'

The wind howled outside and an icy draught whistled through the cracks -4 the drizzle-clouded windows. I remembered how long ago, in my college days, I had been advised to play hockey instead of worrying my head with abstruse theological problems. Surely this case was analogous?

Miranda,' I inquired seriously, do you ever take any exercise? ' Why, yes,' she replied, of course, but I take it in tabloids.' She reached down another small bottle and handed it to me. Science is on my side. It has made movement, which belongs wholly to the present, almost entirely unnecessary.' On the blue label was writtenEXERCISO. Adults : One tablet is equal to a five-mile walk.

Athletes : Two tablets are equal to a football match.

Three tablets are equal to a boat-race.

Infants : Half a tablet is equal to a romp in the garden.

There are other things,' she went on, handing me another bottle. This is RESTFORALL. One tablespoonful in the evening is equal to an eight hours sleep. No waste of time lying with your eyes shut. No dressing and undressing and making beds. Above all, no horrible getting up in the morning.'

But your dreams ? '

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' Oh, I have them at any moment. Besides, they don't really serve the purpose of sleep at all. They are a great strain on the nervous system, in the present state of our psychic development.'

Miranda's face twitched and her eyes began to roll ominously. I felt that this whole visit was a great strain on my nervous system. It was terrible. Who could have told that Miranda would come to this? I longed for something simple and ordinary. At that moment, as though in answer to my wish, a small figure fair-haired and puzzled-looking, appeared in the doorway. Sebastian ! I turned to him with relief.

This,' said Miranda, pulling him forward, ' is a Child. Not a miniature man, you know, but a developing organism. Run along now, Sebastian, and develop in the garden.' The child fled, with a look of terror in his eye. I was alone. Alone once more with this maniac—this Foodex, Restforall, Exerciso Fiend. I trembled consulsively. ' Why are you afraid? ' inquired Miranda. ! I see. It is because your knees are shaking.' But in that instant I knew beyond all future doubt that the Behaviourists were wrong. It was the other way round. ' Your husband,' I gasped. Can't I see your husband? ' Suddenly I could not bear the thought of being alone with her another instant.

Valentine ? Certainly. Come here, Val ! ' she called in a shrill voice, ghastly, like the wind outside and as cold as the drizzle on the windows.

The door at the far end of the room opened, and a tall, heavy man entered.

He had the appearance of an athlete ; there was a gentle smile on his face and a glassy look in his eye. He stood quite still in the doorway, staring at Miranda and smiling.

He was a Cambridge Rowing Blue,' she explained with pride. ' I married him because it was fashionable to do so in the days when I cared for such things. Cambridge Rowing Blues were very much sought after, and rare, you know. They used the same ones over and over again. Come and shake hands, Val ! She spoke to him gently, as one would to a good child who was shy. He obeyed, still smiling and saying nothing.

Miranda ! ' I gasped. What have you done? What is wrong with him? ' Oh. nothing,' replied Miranda, placidly ; but he is stupid, you know —sane and stupid in the ordinary English way, so I keep him in a hypnotic trance most of the time. He does as I tell him, and is really no trouble.

Run along now, Val, and chop wood ! ' He went. I was alone again. An awful fear came over me that I should never get away. That Miranda would never let me go. That I should be powerless under the spell of those green, expressionless eyes, if she chose to hypnotise me too.

Miranda ! ' I cried, I want to go out.'

Miranda jumped up and gripped the back of her chair. No need,' she said, tensely ; the external world is visible through the window.'

It isn't . . . the rain . . . I can't see out at all. Miranda, I must go !

It is there ! ' she whispered. I swear it is still there . . . Wait ! I can prove it by inference. I can prove it from utterly unquestionable premises ! You can't go . . . and leave me.' Her eyes flashed wildly, emerald green against the deathly pallor of her face. Her black hair hung in limp strands on her brow. Lobelia,' she cried, I never saw this. I saw you staying. I saw—' her voice rose to a shrill scream and her hands clenched the air feverishly, I saw a return . . . to the Past ! ' ,

THE IMP I was afraid—but how could I leave her like this? All the heroic stories I had read in my youth flooded back into my mind. Silly stories, damn them—but there was no escaping them now.

Miranda,' I said, I will stay till to-morrow.' ` There is no to-morrow . . . for me,' said Miranda, faintly. Suddenly her knees gave way and she collapsed on to the sofa. No Future . . . no Present . . . only the Past.' Her head fell back limply.

I knelt beside her.

Miranda ! ' I cried.

Miranda, what is wrong? ' But there was no answer. I thought wildly of doctors, detectives and glasses of water. I wondered what anyone else would have done. But it was no use. Her face was ivory white, except for the purple shadow of a cushion. She was dead. In her hand she clasped a tiny bottle, labelled SEESSU. It was empty.

I threw a rug over Miranda and rushed out of the house. It was raining still and dusk now. I•ran, ran, stumbling on the rocky path, splashing through the mud, and thinking of only one thing. To get away, away from the Past, the Present, the Future ; away from Life and away from Death, and back to people who did not think. To people who did everything in the most roundabout, difficult way, and never knew they were sane. S.ebastian . . . Valentine . . . I was sorry for them on the mountain, alone with Miranda, more terrible dead than alive. But, after all, what were they to me, to anyone ? Mere shadows of Miranda Probably they had ceased to exist now that Miranda was dead.

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B.J.S.

Things we want to know Whether the Principles laid down in Areopagitica are widely known in St. Hugh's ?

Whether all pearls are cast before swine ?

Is a vile laugh occasioned by low wits?

Do Bursting Bailers bewail Bedridden Bursars ?

The Bailiff's Daughter of the Pent-a-gon The Pentagon is to be opened at the end of this term, or at the beginning of next, and its appearance will presumably be welcomed by large numbers of the Colleges. Its advantages are obvious, and have been already cited, but its great defect lies in the department of finance. Each College has been asked to attempt to produce ''so this term, but there are little signs of the appearance of such a sum. How are we to raise it?

Now .50 looks a formidable amount, but it can be looked at in various lights. There are roughly 15o members of St. Hugh's ; therefore each member is to be responsible for 6/8 (six and eightpence). Now that is a

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familiar, a reasonable and homely little sum ; it is, after all, only one-third of a J.C.R. subscription, or .333333333 (recurring over and over again) of (one pound). In fact, it is 8o pence. Now what can you get with that ?

Well you can get forty tuppennies—horrid thought. You can have Jo pairs of sheets washed, you can have 2E4 return bus fares to Oxford, you can buy 13 Fritillaries with 2d. over for Peg's Paper, you can have 16o books of matches, you can have 800 Kirby Grips at Woolworth's.

Evidently six-and-eightpence (6/8) is a sum to be reckoned with ; it has power in many directions, but it should be concentrated on collecting for the Pentagon, ere female bailiffs are installed in our silence room, are entertained at our expense in the private dining-room, or use our scrap books in the reading-room. We should be lowered to the dust ; we should possibly be made to wait in humility at the office door, while the editor of the Isis appealed on our behalf.

Obviously we ought to save up. The pennies would soon mount up.

Only have one tuppenny a week, light your cigarettes from your neighbour's fire or from the sun through a magnifying glass. Do something, for this sum must be produced.

But I fear we are a spendthrift community, and pleasure alone will open our purses.

Some of our greater philanthropists have suggested that a Fair should be held in the College Precincts. This has endless possibilities which I do not propose to investigate, but there would naturally be climbing the greasy pole or manipulating the sticky chair. There would be putting the College plate, your money back if you succeeded in breaking it. Hardboiled eggs might be saved up instead of coconuts, a competition in quick eating could be arranged, cheeses not of a tawny hue would be raced for, Aunt Sally could be belaboured with prunes, everyone's weight should be guessed . . .

Words fail me ; the paper is scored with a mystic sign-6/8 (six-andeightpence), and it must be raised.

KITTY HARMAN.

Lines Written during the Archbishop's Visit to Oxford It seems to be everyone's wish To hang on the words of the Bish. ; So forsaking their food The Righteous and Good Have all gone away by the fish.

I freely confess on the whole I care not for the state of my soul ; So I stay in my seat And observe as I eat The Good going out in a shoal.

B. HENDERSON.

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Spring AFTER THE MODERN MANNER. Do not tell me spring has come With Hyacinthine air that's full of shy sweet flutterings,' With Lightsome winds and wondrous leaves And whisperings of summer's lush.'

Do not tell me spring has come On the false witness of an imaginary thrush.

Do not bring catkins, croci, willow-buds, blossom, South walls, secluded glades and sunny interludes, As proof that winter is no more.

What are these pale sun-flickers, These yellow-fingered crocus shoots, these spikes of celandine But golden hairs Upon the brawny back of winter.

Winter gone—forsooth He is so near, The fine gold fluff upon his flesh is clear.

Do not tell me spring has come— I know you lie.

A Traveller's Tale And this Community liveth for the Most Part in a House of Many Mansions, but Its Neophytes dwell in smaller Abodes, such as are found in Our Country. And over each Body of These there ruleth a Guardian, who is Seldom Visible and Must-not-be-disturbed. The Chiefest Sign of Her Displeasure is the Banishment to the Place of Many Mansions, though, at the same time, the Transmigration thence is accounted a Privilege, and the Fully Initiated enter upon it after the Space of a Year. And when I asked Some of the Novices the Reasons of these things they could not answer, but replied in a song, in this wise :— Strophe:

Sing of the Guardian, and let our song be grave ; Of her the vestal of silence and the night, Priestess of darkness and the secret rite She pays to Morpheus in her shadowed cave.

Not oft revealed to sight, She shuns the gaze Of mortal eyes, and to the works and ways Of knowledge she devotes her melancholy days.

Antistrophe : Sometimes, afar, to us listening in wonder, A sound is borne, a footstep in the thunder, A sybilline utterance urging sacrifice Of silver speech to golden silence ; and, anon, The veil is drawn, and the fateful presence is gone.

And there We sit, fixing each other with glassy stare.

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Strophe 2 : More often oracular writing, ambiguous, As the hand wrote upon the Persian's wall Inscrutable, Issues out of the shrine and urges us In words of doubtful portent, thus and thus : ' Let the sandal be used, the buskin laid aside, After the mystic watch which I have set ; And let your sacrifice be greater yet, And be your return more pat upon the appointed tide.' lir

Antistrophe

2:

And if you forget, Vengeance, black Ate, savage Erynnes Shall seize And banish you to a more delectable place, Where many mansions be And envied of many ; and ye Shall no more see my face.

Full. Chorus: So let us bow before the high decree, Not striving to understand Too much the Councils of the Supremely Wise, For only men are we.

It is enough that the Law stands firm in our eyes, And this is good : that man with Law agree.

Extract from Cotton MS. Nero A. XIV I have a strange linguistic neighbour, Versed in orthography, named Klaeber, An eminent philologist.

And sunk in solitude he sits All day collating manuscripts, While round about him to and fro, On Sweet and Wyld and Skeatish toe, The little Emendations go And toss the lingual caber.

There too the mad Hypotheses Go leaping like performing fleas In Morris dance remantic ; And there, oh ! strange phenomenon, An old Hapax-legomenon And several Anacoluthon Have joined the rout romantic.

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THE IMP rst Philologist's Song:

Oh happy throng, oh blithe abandon, Here we sit all day emending ; Scholarship is never ending, There is always more to do.

Let us take this hybrid word, Entomologically absurd, Torture its derivative Into something that will give A variant reading far transcending All the readings hitherto.

Never mind about the blendingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Almost anything will do.

Chorus:

Scholarship is never ending, There is always more to do.

ANON.

From Music I saw a flame In the dark Grow like a flower From a spark.

It had bright power And grew apace Till it became Fire, flower, a face.

The Working Bursar (With apologies to W. S. Gilbert.)

Rising early in the morning (Tea in prospect for Miss Gwyer), And my jocund self adorning In its work-a-day attire, I embark without delay On the duties of the day.

First I polish off some batches Of bursarial despatches, And the lingerers at breakfast circumvent ; Then, if business isn't heavy, I may hold a friendly levee, Or rub a bruise or two with liniment : Then I probably review the household staffâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; With the usual cheerful grunt, and cheerful laugh !

Or receive With ceremonial and state A visit from our Fascist Potentate.

E.T.

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After that I generally Mount my Austin or my Raleigh, Or interview the doctor—he's a touchy little man— Write some letters literary With Princ.'s private secretary— I am shaky in my spelling, so she helps me if she can.

Then, in view of cravings inner, I go down and order dinner ; Or I polish Austin's fittings, or the College-Meeting plate, Spend an hour in titivating My black spaniel-in-waiting ; Or I run on little errands for the Minister of State.

Oh, Philosophers may sing, And the telephone may ring, But my duties are delightful—I enjoy them 't any rate ; But the privilege and pleasure That I treasure beyond measure Is to run on little errands for the Minister of State !

After luncheon (making merry On a prune, or a blackberry), If I've nothing in particular to do, I may spread some information, Or receive a deputation— In the course of which I hear a thing or two.

Then I help a fellow-creature on her path With advice of embrocation or a bath :.

Or I dress and toddle off in semi-state To a festival, a function, or a fête.

Then I go and tend the ailing With a kindliness unfailing Marching hither, marching thither r better? better ? 1 to and fro.

In my wake the spaniel flounders, Thinking ' Most of them are bounders, Still their taste in cake is moderate, and they're generous as they go.'

I rush down to early dinner Just in time to catch the sinner, Then I dine, and drink my coffee—Bridge, till half-past twelve or one.

Then with pleasure that's emphatic I seek out my little attic With the gratifying feeling that my duty has been done.

Oh, Philosophers may sing, And the telephone may ring, But of pleasures there are many, and of troubles there are none ; And the culminating pleasure That I treasure beyond measure Is the gratifying feeling that my duty has been done !

N. E. V. L.

THE IMP

Ode to a Name in a Second-hand Book Who are you, R. G. Underhill?

I will not try to guess.

My heart goes out to you, a fellOw creature in distress.

Five years ago you owned this book The name and date attest, And underlined in red and blue The parts you thought were best.

Did you, like me, sit up at night, Approaching desperation, And struggle to get through P. Mods.

By work in moderation?

Did you, as that dread time approached, Throw caution to the wall, And working twenty hours a day Not go to bed at all?

And did you pore on Henderson And wade through Henry Clay?

Was Dalton's text-book of Finance Invented in your day?

If so, my heart goes out to you, Oh, R. G. Underhill.

We never met : I do not think It's likely that we will : I know not what your face is like, Your outlook high or low, What you have done since you went down, And I shall never know.

Did you get through P. Mods. at once?

Or did you often plough?

Or take a First in Modern Greats?

What are you doing now?

A re you a learned Oxford Don? Or railway overseer?

Or has the realm of pure finance Become your natural sphere?

Is Lombard Street or Mincing Lane Your every-day resort, To practise all the principles That Hartley Whithers taught?

One thing I know, R. Underhill, You read this book right through And underlined important partsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; So p'r'aps I'll read it too.

THE IMP

Prize-winning Ode SPRING ODE. Sentience is on the wing, And in the gaunt, unchannelled womb Of winter Stir The matrices of resurrection.

Burgeoning Upwards and out from their seraphic sleep The crocuses in conscious crocodiles— javelins, bulb-begotten, Prophetic pinnacles, Standards of spring upthrustingSaffron submissive earth.

Awakening, Spawned Of sylvester silence, sprout Snowdrops crepuscular, Jade-interlined as though re-edited, Impalpably revised From pristine pagination And the white Nullification of virginity.

Beat, beat The timbrels of resuscitated sound, Dynamic instancy ; Recharge the batteries of life anew, And deify red madness ; Surge Along the shell-strown sands of being, And take hold The unessential fringes of the Spring.

BRENDA GREEN.

Moonlight Clouds—apparently scorched—conceal the moon, the sky around, merely dark, no colour.

The eternal bare tree etched on its dirty indigo—an ugly scene.

When the clouds part, the moon, a mere coin, polished to a brasso brightness protrudes its worn edge.

And even in romantic climes, I remember sitting in my night clothes on a stone window-ledge in the approved manner, gazing at a stone turret with moonlight down it, Mere stone-work thrown into cold prominence.

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THE IMP A certain charm (the moon being hidden) from diffused moonlight over the garden.

The sky a richer dark and the stars brighter But all very still and monotonous, no variety in moonlight.

How often desperate-hearted seeking sweet alleviation that blank two-dimensional face expressionless tin meeting mine, confessional.

No, no. No Nature, pathetic fallacy-Am a humanist. No pantheism never.

S.

Spring Oh Spring !

You gushing thing, Encouraging Us to pour Before your door Bad verses, more and more and more.

(Making a muddy puddle.)

We all have heard Your chirping bird, That wakes us at untimely hours.

Say, does he sing of food or flowers?

Of caterpillars, or of sunny bowers?

We know Your glistening snow Pure white ; but oh !

It leaves a mess, I must confess, That is by no means loveliness.

(More puddles.)

We all have 'flu Because of you : Your weather, changing and untrue.

Oh Spring, Deceitful thing !

E. PARSONS.

I am a young maid of St. Hugh's.

I can even write verse if I choose, And make rhyme and rhythm And poetry with 'em ; But I can never write the last line of a limerick.

M.M. [We publish this poem above the fictitious signature M.M.' as the author considered it to be too personal to appear in her own name.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;En.]

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Lacrosse The Lacrosse has proved very much more encouraging this term.

Despite one or two weak places in the team, the general level of stick-work and energy is very creditable, and those not actually in the team have worked hard in rather uninspiring practices.

We were unfortunate in our choice of dates for matches, since either through illness or through the coincidence of a United practice, on both the occasions of matches only a scratch team was available. However, heterogeneous collection of players drew two all with Gloucester Training College. But St. George's, Harpenden, were too good for us, and scored seven goals to nil before drenching rain completely stopped play.

In the Cupper v. O.H.S., we brought off a hard won victory, 8-6, in a very well fought game. The homes and wings were on the whole weak in catching and shooting, and relied on centre and 3rd home to do most of the effective attack, but the defence work was excellent throughout. M. Lewis, M. Phillips and E. Temple won their colours in this match.

In the final Cupper v. L.M.H., the team played up tremendously, and, despite six United players against us, the score was only 2-I at halftime. L.M.H. then took the lead, and eventually won 6-2. The defences and goal were again exceptionally good, but with centre playing a defence game and a shaky left attack and first home the forwards failed to make a final pressure on goal. M. Beattie and H. Faure returned to the ranks for this match, and made a noticeable improvement to the team. M. Macdonald won her colours in this match. M. Lewis is to be congratulated on gaining her Blue.

Next year's Captain is J. Sprules, and the Secretary is M. Lewis.

The team for the final Cupper was :â&#x20AC;&#x201D;g., M. Macdonald ; pt. , M. Buick ; c. pt. , M. Beattie ; 3rd m. , S. Goodfellow ; r. d. , E. Temple ; 1.d. , M. Phillips ; c., K. Harman ; H Faure ; /.a., J. Burton ; 3rd h., M. Lewis ; znd h., J. Sprules ; ist h., I. Josephy.

K. H.

Hockey The First XI has played with much more sense of combination this term, with the consequence that the general standard of play has shown signs of improvement. Our great difficulty is irregularity of attendance at practices and matches. However, we have been able to give quite good games to several London teams. The team succeeded in winning the Inter-Collegiate Hockey Cup, playing the final match v. St. Hilda's. There was universal regret that we had not been vouchsafed the opportunity of defeating Somerville. Miss Josephy has proved herself invaluable in playing and in organisation throughout the season. Miss Burton and Miss Lippold have been awarded their colours and their Swans for consistently high standard of play. Miss Jackson has been awarded her colours. The Second XI has had an evanescent existence, but Misses Reeve and Crosland have been of great assistance in keeping such team as there was together. They have been awarded their colours. E. S.

THE IMP

Netball The standard of play has improved this term, but the game played by St. Hugh's is rather spoilt by careless passing, a feature especially prominent in the Wychwood match. The teams should try to settle down to winning the match (and not just making a preliminary trial of their opponents' strength) right from the beginning of the game. The second team is to be congratulated on the very good effort it has made with a team of evervarying personnel.

Of individual players, colours have been awarded to P. Hall and M. Holt for consistently good play ; B. Green, J. Irwin, B. Betts, S. Goodfellow and M. Woolf have played well and, a great virtue, turned out regularly to practices.

In the Cuppers we were defeated in the first round by the Home Students. As they were the winners of the final and a really good team, it is certain that we were definitely outplayed ; a better fight should, however, have been put up ; every single member of the team seemed, I think, to be assailed by an inferiority complex coupled with depression at the wretched weather. St. Hugh's must certainly put up a better game next year, and for this we rely largely on the present First Year. The latter lost the year Cupper to the Second Year, but we hope this will only stimulate them to greater effort next year. Get down to it, First Year !

Finally, M. Holt and B. Betts are to be congratulated and thanked for carrying out respectively the duties of Vice-Captain and Secretary so efficiently. M. E. C.

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