DEFENCE OF "RAG"

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 114, 15 May 1926, Page 31

DEFENCE OF "RAG"

WHAT STUDENTS AND VICECHANCELLOR SAY. In defence of the London University Students - all-night " rag " at Bloomsbury —condemned by Sir Chartres Blron, the Bow Street magistrate, the following day— a statement was issued on behalf of the Bloomsbury Students Executive Committee by Messrs. J. A. Gulland, John A. Hawgood and Jj. Q. Smith, vbo declare : — Rowdyism -was not encouraged, t nor do Tre believe that the pickets, on the whole, were noisy. We can state that the use of a barrel-organ during the small hours was not prearranged, and that any disturbance caused by it was due not to any deliberate Intention to annoy, but rather to tha high spirits of the moment. '■ Ragging. -, in-the sense thatit ie generally understood, was strongly discouraged as entirely detrimental to our cause. Professor E. A. Gardner, vice-chancellor of the University of London, at the annual dinner of the Imperial College of Science and Technology at the Hotel Cecil, eaid that it was of the happiest augury that all the students of all the colleges Joined in that most interesting and important demonstration which took place on the Bloomsbury site, when that great body of students made a cordon and danced round the site. (Laughter.)

An extraordinary case of saeep-worrying fey a donkey was reported to \he Market Drayton police from Hiastock. Mr. TButlers, a local farmer, saw the donkey careering madly after his sheep. Four lambs were dead, and the animal was only driven off with difficulty. A verdict of "Snlcide while oi an unsonna mind" was returned at a Battersea Inquest on William Bowley <aged 48), a builder, of Latchmere Road, Battersea, who hangea himself after losing everything in a bet on the Grand National.