To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

It is often pleasant, during a session in Widener, to stare at women or books or similar objects placed there for the convenience of the student. One's glance is occasionally interrupted, however, by an ashtray in a line with the object.

What is especially disconcerting about the ashtrays in Widener is not that there remains a dearth of them; this alone has led to the establishment of several fine friendships. Nor is it that nobody will empty them. While people are stuffing their minds it may not be urged with fairness that they get up and throw away the accumulation of their used cigarettes. Simply the fact that these ashtrays never manage to be washed is the cause of this student's complaint. Who will wash them? Not I, nor the young lady opposite. But surely someone.

No, nobody washes the ashtrays in Widener, and as a result one's cigarette is often coated with a resinous black tar. One's hands become gummy and sticky. One is forced to quell an impulse to flick an ash or two on the rubber tile beneath one's feet.

Perhaps voluntary giving might provide an answer to this dilemma, though with solicitation occuring so regularly, such a plan does not seem completely feasible. This student advocates some sort of organized fund drive to raise the standard of these pitifully black receptacles. Joseph C. Walker '58