[We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest.]

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

May I present a few facts which seem worth publication in view of off repeated statements about Memorial board? The high price of board there during the fall has been attributed to the "transient" system. Three or four hundred men are eating there now under this system and about five hundred on the American plan. It is then important to know whether this accusation is true.

In October the number of boarders on the "fish and egg" system averaged 800. The average total cost of board to each of them was $5.96 per week. Granting, as those who ate it and even those who provided it will, that this was too high, how much of it shall we blame on the "transients"? The opponents of the latter system say eighty cents per week. We will take their figures. 800 men then paid 80 cents per week too much, total $640, to be divided among the guilty transients and borne by them. A week's board, 21 meals, in the "transient" section in October averaged in cost $4.64 and there averaged 125 such boarders per week, that is, the average total of meals served in that section each week in October divided by 21 gives the result 125. Distributing the $640. among these 125 boarders, we must add roughly $5, to the cost of each one's board, bringing it to the figure $9.64, cost to the Hall of feeding each "transient" boarder a week! This amount is of course ridiculous. Evidently the cause of the high price of board is not the "transient" system. Even if one granted that the "transients" should each have paid $1 per week more, this would have reduced merely by fifteen cents the $5.96 that the 800 men were paying.

So much for the facts. I should like to add an opinion based on some study of Memorial Hall affairs, as to some of the important causes of the unsatisfactory condition there during the fall. Chiefly because of the large plant and the attempt to pay off the debt too rapidly Memorial can furnish board cheaply only when a large number of men are eating there. Owing to unfortunate experiments in the past, the number was small even at the beginning of the College year. The food under the "fish and egg" system was unsatisfactory to many. Some left the Hall and the result was still higher board to those remaining. There were undoubtedly some other but less important causes. The Corporation has remitted three quarters of the payment on the debt for two months and if both systems at present on trial in the Hall are carefully managed and advertised with the idea of pleasing the men who board there and not of finding the easiest wholesale job for the management, the writer believes that these efforts will meet with increasing success. A neglect of either system means a failure to attract the maximum number possible to the Hall and will result in serious difficulty again. W. A. COLWELL '02.