"As it was in the beginning ..."

Notice in Harvard CRIMSON, February 20, 1885.

"Unless two hundred paid subscriptions can be secured for the "Lampoon" within two week's time, the paper will be compelled to suspend publication. The price per subscription for the remaining half year is $1.50. A book will be immediately placed at Bartlett's, and everyone who is interested in seeing the 'Lampoon' continued, is urgently requested to enter his name there at once. Seventy-five of those who subscribed at the beginning of the year have not yet paid their subscriptions. The money for these must be obtained within a few days, as the paper is seriously involved. Subscription payments may be made at the Cooperative store, or to any member of the 'Lampoon' board."

When interviewed as to the reaction to this frantic plea, A.T. Zupp-Zupp '84, erstwhile Ibis of the "Lampoon," confessed, in a still, small voice, that it had been alarming. All those who had paid for their subscriptions sold them for what they could get (a few went for as little as one cent), though the majority yielded a quarter or so. The crisis was only slightly severer than those experienced chronically by the "Lampoon," accounting possibly for its checkered chronology. Mr. Zupp-Zupp could only express amazement that the sheet is still in circulation.