Princeton University - Nassau Herald Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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NIE Nfissfi U HERALD. 21 prepare to shed them now, while Grist ambles up to the front. You all do know this--suppose we say garment. You do not? WVhy, it belonged to Banks, one of our ,old Scientifs 5 the fresh- rest man I ever saw. I remember the last time ever Banks put it on. 'Twas on an Autumn evening in Fresh. year, in his room. That night he and Grist Blair led a little band of Freshmen to the Prep. ,school to steal ducks. They had so much fun. When they started it was very dark and cold, then it soon began to rain. Things got funnier every minute. , They couldn't find the ducks 5 but Banks soon found a sort of an old sewer, 11. e., 'he found himself standing up to his neck in it., I-Iis, friends dragged him out, made him keep to the windward of them, and went to see if they could steal a pig or a cow 'g but the pig -made so much noise, and the cow looked so fierce, that they gave it up. Then it was decided to take every chicken on the place. Before this little plan was fully carried out, Banks yelled that -some one was coming, threw off his hat and coat and ran across a ploughed field toward Kingston, closely followed by Grist, who had a chicken under his arm. The others, with more chickens, -soon overtook Grist, and came back to Princeton, where next day 'fSundayj they had a feast. Sweet, sad memories-such as those bilious young orators this morning told you ,clung around dear old North, and the dear old cannon, and Jim Gralbraith, and things in that line-such memories, I say, clung around those -six ancient hens, for in this land of old tough chickens they were the oldest of the old, the toughest of the tough. Take this, Gist, a memento of your .skillful generalship, of our poor .scared friend, ofthe avalanche 'of fun weihad that night. Whether the sweet-scented, coatless Banks isistill running, I know not, but as I haven't seen him since, I suppose he is. Yet, that you may not mistake him for . ' MORDECAI, THE WANDERING JEW, . fthe exile from Manhattan Beach, I' will show you that gentle- man. This is Mordecai--a great man, an editor, a great editor, -editor of the Clippings in The Pfincetonian. ' I believe it 'was Aristotle, or Sam I-Iilliard, or 'Ben Vaughn , or some of that -crowd, who once said, The pen is mightier than the sword 5

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20 . THE NASSA-U HERALD. bravery. He claims by his courage to have saved more human lives than any other man in college. We believe it, and wish to place a few cases on record. How, in Fresh. year, when an infuriated mob of three Freshmen Qabout the size of ' Pretty J ack- sonj, returning from a horn-spree, .were about to demolish Mat. Goldie, Massie crawled boldly into the shadow of the Qbserva- tory and cried, Oh, Mr. Goldie, we're just going home. Come on, fellowsf, That, Massie, was indeed a noble act, but you outdid yourself when you led us toward the Junction, fi. e., as far as the canal. p There, I unfortunately, you heard that' the Freshmen Qwhom we were afterj were 'big fellows, were ready for us, were armed with thosepodious things called clubs, and those hateful things known as pistols, and that you would make pa splendid target. Was it nervousness ? Why did you seek the rear, and beg-the boys to do nothing rash? When at the Junc- tion you sawthe mighty Caesar Augustus Rodney Subathoo India 'Janvier prancing around, blood in his eye, murder in his heart, bad words on his lips, and his hands full of stones, you fled- no, not fled-you retreated hastily, .crawled under the platform at the freight depot, and were induced to' come out about five hours after the Freshmen had gone. Those Freshmen undoubt- edly owe their lives to you alone, for had you only led us on we would have settled their cases, but without you we were power- less. 1 Then, again, only this Winter you saw how we all suffered from the 'college choir, of which Beasley was the arch-fiend. You pitied us, and avenged our woes on Beasley. Not that you loved Beasley less, but that you loved us a hea.p more. Let us hope that he is now suffering some little of the misery he once inflicted upon us. In fact, we all owe our lives to you. Wfere these the days of chivalry we might knight you, we might even dub you a Chief of the Noble Order of D. F.'s 5 but those days are past, so you, ll have to content yourself with the lite-saving medal of the Humane Society, for having on so many ocousioiis taken such great care of the life of David M. Massie. While we're on these melancholy tnemes you might as well seo t GIST BLAIR. Those of you who have tears to shed will please hit hor up and

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22 THE Nassa U HERALD. but, George, your scissors can discount any pen. By the unani- mous opinion of the college your deportment was held to contain the best4-in fact, some thought the only good-English in The Przfncetomian. Often, indeed, you managed to punctuat-e whole' sentences, getting even the period in its proper place-a thing' almost unknown- in they other departments, for I understand it was the custom of - that magnificent board of editors to omit about two-thirds of the commas, periods, quotation marks, Sac., in certain numbers of their paper, and then put them at random into the next number, thus giving your paper the spicy, devil- may-care appearance that every true college paper should have, Some think Blee' originated this idea, and I' m inclined to give him the credit for it, and give you-mucilage and shears. You saw how dignified Dunning Was. The same dignity will now be sh.own by two of , his BROTHER Enitronis, Fine ananedges. i 1 This is the only man in college that has a Greek consciousnessf' How he came by it I know not. I hope he got it honestly. i Tis to the use he makes of it that I would call your attention. It has made him the greatest philologist in college. A single example of his work may sufhce. He took the old root gig, the stem a of the Greek word 25000-H 2500-0-which you know means either a goose-gizzard or something half-way between a sardine and a 'fsnoozerfi He traced it into Chinese, where it means green hair-dye and lots of it 3 then into Choctaw, where it stands for a man who blesses a five-cent plate of ice cream before he eats it, and so on through all languages. Yet with all this work he's had time enough to take lst for four straight years, and be managing editor of The PQ'-in,cetonia.o1.. Next Wednesday he'll try to palm off a lot of gibberish and slang for ai Latin salutatory 5 but most of you will be too sharp to believe him, Another gift I intended for you, but you will have to solace yourself with this club with which the Trinity exclmnge- editor used to belabor every issue of your paper. Now, whileLI attend to Hedge's wants will you be kind enough to send Weed and that multitudinously-named young man, John Charles Fremont Royer, this way ?