"Good Hevvens!"

Military censors got a new kind of kick in their chair-worn pinks. The kicker was the author of "Marmaduke's Colum (The Journal of a London Sub-Editor's Youthful Son)" which appears weekly in London's World's Press News. Fortnight ago Marmaduke tried to imagine what would happen if Alfred, Lord Tennyson had had to get his Charge of the Light Brigade cleared through the Censorship Division of the British Ministry of Information.

"'Good hevvens!' a shocked officiel would cry. 'You can't mension the Light Brigade--it's not officielly released that they're out there at all yet. That'll have to come out.' (Slash.)"

" 'Half a league, half a league . . . good lord! This is serious. You must cut that, though you can say we made small advances in that sector.' (Slash.)"

" 'Someone had blundered . . . mercy on us! You cannot criticize the War Office like that! You're asking for serious trubble, and you may be detaned under Regulation 18b. That'll have to come out.' (Slash.)"

" 'Into the valley of Death ... no, no, no! You'll have to wait for the official communique before you mension where the figting is takeing place. You could mension there was patrol activity in certin areas, but you're not allowed to state the actuel place.' (Slash.)"

"And so," mused Marmaduke, "the epic peice would be wittled down to a few lines which dident even scan, and would be handed back to the noble poet with the embargo: 'Not for publication before 00.30 hours B.S.T. . . .' And the noble poet would probely give up poetry altogether and get a job writing hand-outs for the Ministry."

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