"coprophagy" (dung-eating). It is not hard to imagine other words besides dung to which phag may have been added in vulgar parlance to indicate "---eater." As there does not appear to be any word with the same meaning in either medieval Latin or other Germanic languages similar to "faggot", the implication is strong that it came to the land where English developed directly from Roman soldiers with a smattering of Greek vulgar words, and became the "oldest word in the English language," Garde says.

FLORIDA INVESTIGATORS APPALLED BY SCHOOL MORALS

A Florida state investigative committee recently told the legislature that the existence of homosexual practices among faculty members and students of the state's educational system is "absolutely appalling," reports John Boyles in the Miami Herald. The practice, he said, extends to people high in the educational system, some of them occupytop-rung administrative posts. It appeared to be more prevalent in the universities than in the lower grade schools.

Alleged sexual misconduct at the University of Florida touched off the investigation. Dismissed as a result of it were 15 instructional and staff personnel. Found also were homosexual tendencies and practices a mong 27 teachers in one of Florida's large counties. In the same county, the investigators said, every male employee, without exception, was

shown to be a practicing homosexual."

However, investigators, in seeking to minimize the problem, came up with this fact: "The situation in Florida is no worse than in any other state of comparable size and makeup." Could it be just that an awareness of the reality of human sexual makeup is beginning to seep into view in a state where witchhunts are still practiced in the midtwentieth Century? STANDING ROOM ONLY

The much-vexed question of birth control was gone into by Newsweek in a recent issue. As was pointed out by the writer few other things rouse more intense emotional reactions, though its importance has become increasingly obvious to qualified observers and authorities in recent years, prompting Sir Julian Huxley, the British biologist, to say, "Human population is probably the gravest problem of our time, certainly more serious in the long perspective than war or peace." There are estimated to have been 275 million peoplein the world at the time of Christ. By 1962 there are expected to be more than 3 billion and by the end of this century there will be approximately 6 billion to 7 billion, of whom about a fifth will be Chinese.

The article failed to mention the fact that the greater amount of abortions take place among the married past thirty who have already had two to three children and are unwilling to shoulder the burden of another. Nor mattaching REVIEW

was the probably nonsensical theory that homosexuality might be nature's way of insuring a cutting down of the birthrate gone into. However, as the writer showed the problem as one that overleaps all national barriers and is being met in one way or another in almost every country in the world, with the exception of China and Egypt whose nationalistic aspirations make them encourage their citizens to breed extensively.

The classic summation of why many feel the necessity for some sort of control was given by an old headsman in India. When the Planned Parenthood Federation visited him he said, "The most important thing that has happened here was the building of the health center." He glanced around him at the mud huts of the little village and continued, "Now our babies do not die; our men and women live longer. That is good, but we still have the same land and twice as many people as we did when I was a boy. We had two meals a day then and now wer'e lucky to get one."

VALMOUTH

Valmouth, a musical in London, has now been moved to the West End because of the success it has received. The show is based on the novel of the same name by Ronald Firbank, the British writer who died in 1926, and was described by his friends as "having the walk of a fe male impersonator" and being embarrassing to encounter in public. However, his novels though somewhat over-aesthetic and tending to

be precious, anticipated presentday writing techniques to a large degree and he is usually considered a distinct, though minor, talent. The subject of homosexuality either appears directly in all his novels or else thoroughly permeates the atmosphere. The musical is described as "a perverse, witty, decadent, and convoluted musical oddement," by Alan Brien, the British critic, who concludes by saying, "Valmouth is not in good taste, and it is not in bad taste it has a unique, fascinating flavor of its own." The composer and librettist? none other than Sandy Wilson of The Boy Friend fame.

MATTACHINE IN LITERATURE

Most persons usually look puzzled when they hear the Society's name for the first time and wonder why such an exotic one was ever picked out. Actually, the word was once widely used in English literature and its use was only recently abandoned.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, at present the most extensive and thorough authority on the origins of English words, "the word originally came from the Arabic. It is derived from mutawajjibin, the present participle plural of tawajjaba, to assume a mask. It was then taken over into Spanish and became used in Italy, Spain, and France for a dance of masked fools, or Matachins.

English writers of the 16th and 17th centuries used it to signify a kind of masked sword dancer in a fantastic (continued on page 31) 23