Princeton University - Nassau Herald Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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THE NASSA U HEIRALD. 25 on business, Dr. Atwater only said, with ja mournful sigh, Uh, Mr. Maires, they all tell me thatf, That stopped those trips. But Sam' s strong point is difficult passages from the old masters and elsewhere. There he excels. He practices them regularly. Every morning he awakens the slumbering echoes in the cellar of lVitherspoon, and a little later appears to receive the congratu- lations of his friends upon his good luck 5 a sight which moved the stony-hearted Poller Greene to express his joy in an epitaph, which I have nottime to give. Nor, Sam, have I forgotten how, in a Fresh. year prayer-meeting, you warmed up, and asked that there might be a little maiden for each one of us. Nor how the fervent amen that came from your enraptured classmates, showed what a tender chord you had touched. As your little maiden does not seem to have appeared yet, console. yourself with this one and these musical instruments Qfiddle and P. P. P. PJ Now we are ready' for Boss Ingram and William J. Gibson. Boss, besides running an extensive Sunday-school on days when it doesn't rain pitchforks, has done a great many wonderful things. I once saw him try to jump across Stony Brook. I-Ie did it in two jumps. The lirst jump left him in three feet of cold, running water. Boss excels as an ' ORATOR, though not in the same line with Governor, who, before the late election, addressed a crowd of Princeton darkies as follows: N Friends, brothers, fellow-citizens, for I guess Ican call you fellow-citizens, as the Democrats ,haven't disfranchised me yet. Friends, I come from Pennsylvany, and Pennsylvany is a mighty good State to come from. Then the Governor, as usual, jumped the track, and with sixty-three double gestures and twenty-seven single ones, pra.ised some great Republican for being, all by him- self, a brilliant galaxy of shining satellites, and wound up by describing that wonderful animal called a collateral votef' and the process of N perforation. No wonder the Democrats carried that election. Nor can Boss talk as fast as Billy Miller did about Cuba, nor does he pronounce his English after the manner of Eddy, the wild Syrian, the hungry scientif. Boss, mark Febru-

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24 I THE NASSA U IIERALD. 1 live on phosphorus for the next couple of centuries, eat fish, parlor matches, dmc., and begin on these. I forgot to say that in the highest flights of philosophy the Ding au Sich 7' is per- fectly at home. 'The infinite, the unknown and the unknowable are just his meat. But here is a philosopher of a different stamp '-one who deals with practical questions. He is, as you per- ceive, an Ohio man, and remarkable in that he is the only Ohioan who to-day is not holding or running for an office. I must beg his pardon for calling him a Darwinian, for that might imply that he is notstrictly original in his views 5 yet he resem- bles Mr. Darwin in not having any troublesome religious views, in loving to wrestle with the question of the descent of man, and in having framed a grand hypothesis in connection with that subject. ' His hypothesis is as follows: From the great Hrst germ to the perfect type of -manhood he finds but four steps. Hirst. From the primordial Ileibnitzian mound to the tumble- bug. Secondly. From the tumble-bug to the Ohio man. Thirdly. From the Ohio man tothe chimpanzee. Fourzfltly and lastly. From the chimpanzee to that awful height upon which, in lov- ing embrace, with arms around each other's necks, stand J ack .Van Dyke, Heineken and Fatty White. For that hypothesis I have nothing but praise, yet how, O John Charles 'Fremont, .according to it do you evolve this gum-belt upon which'D1'. Brackett kept you working for six long weeks ? Every day the Doctor added another pound weight .to the belt, and every day you remeasured it, until at last your failing health compelled you to drop physics and take history. Take it, J011115 and, in connection with your philosophical studies, resume your physi- cal researches, and report to usat the next centennia.l. Next will appear'Sam Maires, our great A r MUsroIAN, K' who, has practiced on the violin for thirteen years, with slight improvement. He used to take lessons in a place called Trentoii 3 go down there every Saturday, and come up in the Owl 3'-' until his class officer, getting wind of it, summoned Sain, alwuuggrl hilu of frequenting Trenton 3 and when Sam explained that he went

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Q6 ' TTHE NASSAU HERALD. ary the 22d with a white stone. It was a great day for you. Without a doubt, your ,tribute to the memory of VVither- spoon and the glories of Scotland, so touched His Majesty, Mesilf, that he raised your psychology grade at least fifty per cent. YOU are, I've seen, a great collector of pictures, not of the 'f we care so much, don't we, style, nor of the kind with which Fatty Faulkner shocks modest, visiting Professors, nor like Cowan's highly-colored chromos. How will this fit in your collection? A picture of the great John VV., as, stylograph in hand, he is signing the Declaration. Take it away, and send Wiggan up here. This is .Bill Gibson our POET, The poet of the Newark Daily Advertiser. His poems are gen- crally fragmentary, but on such familiar subjects that I know you'll be glad to hear them. His finest effort is an Introduction to an epic on Base-ball, in which are mentioned the favorite occupations of some classmates, yet Gibson afterwards saw fit to entitle it: LINES ON FINDING, BILL SCHENCK AT THE BALL-GROUND? . Awake I oh, Bill Schenck, leave all meaner things To Cutts and Bland, the foot-ball kings. Let Mac and the H Molly U live on the Raritan, Feed on oatmeal, and stuff themselves with bran. LetDuncan and his Cricket Team go soak 'Claret' Linn read almanacs to geta joke, And Stanly buck the penny tiger? 'till l187S broke 5 While o'er his grades each profane Senior raves, , And Eddy talks his friends into their graves 5 While Paxton 'howls and yells and swears, And Ingram sadly dyes his few remaining hairs, Let us, two, sing the praises of the nine, The glories of the diamond field divine. I First, then, ye muses to us tell Who was the man, and who then- Right there the poem stopped short. No pious word could be found to end that last line, and Schenck woke up just thou and chased the poet out of the field, being under the impression that he was a foul-tip or a third strike. Such fugitive poetry