Princeton University - Nassau Herald Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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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

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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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THE Nfissa U HERA LD. 27 should be gently criticised. The poet never felt like iinishing that piece, and wisely 5 for he reflected : Suppose Horton should end a. line 3 why, in English, but two words will rhyme with it. The one is 'snortin7,' the other ' cavortin'.' His muse had no use for that kind of language. I see you don't think the epic is WVm.'s strong point. How does this cold-blooded little lyric of his strike you, on an every-day occurrence in Princeton ? Entitled VVIGGAN. I I Oh, the wide-mouthed Wiggan has gone down to the club, The street was quite filled by his elegant tub, Then houses on both sides got many a rub, ' As the lovely Wiggan tore down for his grub. He stayed not for snob, and he stopped not for snab g He knew they'd have cakes, and he wanted first grab. And he said, with a grin and a wink of his eye, 'How, before the rest come, I will lay in tl1e pie I' And save his stout jaw-bone he weapon l1ad none: He went not unarmed, but he went not alone. Jim Kinney was with him, the tried and the true Jack Leal, Joe Oreech, and Dickey Page, too, - ' And so with a whoop and a grunt and a roar, This lovely old crowd rushed in the club-door. You see Wm.'s How of language is strong, but his knowledge of metre and English grammar is limited,as witness this little unfettered verse on .I IM ANDERSON. J im Anderson, my J im Jow, 'When We were first acquaint, You were as big as you are now, But that ain't saying much, by George, it ain't. That will do for you, Williain. Accept this copy of Mother Goose's Melodies, and instead of the usual laurel crown, this package of Lorillard. Now- you' ve all had a good look at Wiggan, don' t you think the postmaster was right in giving to Wiggan the circular addressed by Eli Perkins to the ' HANDSOMEST MAN IN COLLEGE I know that Ewing, Sam Hamill, and 'fIrv. WVithington felt very bad about it 5 but I agree with the postmaster, for, at