Princeton University - Nassau Herald Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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' Hz'sio1y gf NE? Class of '96, I5 mournfully, ordered the rest to let Mac go, For, said he, I feel as if we were committing sacrilege when I hear that lamb- kin bleat. ' Charlie Bressler also fell into the hands of the Philistines. I-Ie was taken out into the country and there sent up an apple tree to kiss the moon, being handsomely bastinadoed as he went. When fairly up the tree one of his captors incautiously ordered him to sing You must ask of the man in the moon. Bress obediently took the padlocks off his vocal organs and let his whiskey tenor out of the kennel. When the trouble had sub- sided he descended the tree and looked about him. Near by, in a comatose condition, lay the huddled form of him who had given the fatal order, while afar across' the fields the moonlight played checkers on the coat-tails of the last of the retreating hazers. During the first week in October Henry Coulter came prom- inently to the fore. It is hereditary in his family to steal the clapper from the bell in Old North, and Hen vowed not to let the ancestral custom die. I-le had learned just how to do it from his big brothers, so one dark night he and Billy Baylis and Dan La Monte set about the perilous undertaking. Billy carried a long rope, Henry had a skeleton key, while Dan took himself. They reached the roof of Old North undiscovered and proceeded to unscrew the clapper. I They were getting along nicely until Dan said he must see how it felt to play Curfew shall not ring to-night, and grabbing hold of the clapper tried to swing out on it, a la Mrs. Leslie Carter in the Heart of Maryland. Before the other two could stop him the bell had made a hideous jangle and the proctors were heard issuing forth from their cave under the college offices. The fellows wrenched off the clapper, and while Coulter and La Monte beguiled the proctors in front of the building by taunting them from the roof, Baylis slipped down his rope at the back and escaped with the prize. The other two were captured, however, and compelled to pay the usual fine. A

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I4 Hisfofgf W' Zke Class of '96. series began. A call was issued to our class to produce a team and a number of 'fwould-bes were inveigled down to the 'Varsity field. The following men appointed themselves a nine: Mary Anderson, catcher 3 Big Petty, first base, Arty Gunster, third base 5 Pierre Ward, short-stop, Cas Burt, left field 3 Curly Smith, right field, Jimmie Small, second base, Harry Bergen, centre field g Doo Wilson, pitcher. They played throughout the week, not indeed with varying fortune, for the wheel spun in one direction only, but very creditably for a Freshman team. On Saturday, October Ist, the great game of the week, that with the Sophomores, was played. It was like such games usually are- a terriiic din of horns and cheers, a gorgeous array of colors on the part of the Sophmores, much jeering and cat-calling on the part of the Freshmen directed by the Juniors. The band which 'QS had brought up from Trenton was completely silenced by the thunder of our voices and compelled to retire. As for the game, that was a secondary consideration, although I may remark, incidentally, that Dame Fortune still whirled her wheel unchecked, but only after our efforts at rattling the Sophomore pitcher had almost succeeded. Life had a keen variety and zest now for a while, owing to the tireless endeavors of our foes to impress upon us our general and particular unworthiness to be ranked as sons of Old Nassau. One night a crowd seized Frank McDonald on his way home from his club and perceived in him, at a glance, the poetical genius which has since made him so notorious. So they escorted him down Stockton Street for some distance and, stretching him flat on his back across a stepping-stone, suggested CPD that he compose a lyric for them, extempmfe z'1zsz'rmz'e1c In this posi- tion, which was one scarcely favorable to metrical arrangement, Mac couldn't think of an original line to save his frightened soul, so he began to recite in a pathetic tone, Now I lay me down to sleep. Thereupon one of the Sophs, wiping his eyes

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I6 Hisfofgf WC the Class qf '96. few days later almost any member of Ninety-Six might have been seen sporting a little silver clapper on his watch-chain. . On the same night that the clapper was stolen we issued our proclamations expressing in emphatic terms our contempt and disdain for '95, Most of the posting was done by two parties, one consisting of Bum Halsey and some Juniors, the other of George Blackmore and some Juniors. Strange to say the Soph- omores seemed to be caught napping and the only opposition encountered was from a few stragglers who, however, relied more on the long tongue than the strong arm, and these were easily persuaded not to touch the procs. Four of our fellows, however, were arrested in Trenton for decorating doorsteps and shop-fronts with these striking but somewhat gaudy trimmings. The magistrate before Whom they were brought could see no logic in the plea of mental aberration, and it took three dollars apiece and the Prosecutor of the Pleas to rescue Hungry Harriman and his associates. The day after, nevertheless, the procs., both within the borough of Princeton and for miles around, were setting forth the status of the Sophomore class as viewed from a Freshman standpoint. ' y On October 6th a mass-meeting was held to discuss the advisability of abolishing the rush. There was more or less argu- ment on the matter, but since our class had already defeated '9 5 we Were satisfied. Hence we cast in our vote with the affirma- tive and a resolution was passed doing away with the old-time rush. In return for this commendable bit of self-sacrifice, the faculty very graciously consented to legitimatize the cane-spree and it became a regular event in the Fall Handicap Games. Matters went along smoothly for a while, varied now and then by the experiences necessarily attendant upon the inferior position of a F reshman. A reception given us by Mrs. Patton was an oasis in this period and made some of us feel rather homesick and melancholy.