UNDERGRADUATE " HUMOUR."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 121, 24 May 1932, Page 7

UNDERGRADUATE " HUMOUR."

» TEAK-BOMB » HURLED A 1 TRAM DRIVER. EMULATING THE GANGSTERS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 20. This week the University students held their annual commemoration, and celebrated it by a "rag." Divided according to the various "faculties," they met in violent conflict in the University grounds. Dressed in varied costumcs, "dust coats and shorts, football jerseys, singlets, pull-overs and raincoats," they bombarded each other with fusillades of evil-smelling missiles —chiefly putrescent fruit and fisli and decayed vegetables; and one reporter alleged that "every rotten egg in Sydney must have bccii there." The engineering school was at one time barely visible by reason of the continuous explosion of hundreds of bags of flour hurtling through the air around it. Occasionally, when the students grew tired of attacking each other, they raised the cry "Spectators!" and charged down upon the crowd of bystanders. When their ammunition was exhausted they closed in single combat, with consequences disastrous to their personal attire. When these diversions had been exhausted they rushed down to the creek that runs through University Park and dived in, emerging even more noisome and dishevelled than before.

However idiotic, these pranks were at least harmless. But the same justification cannot be offered for the conduct of a small gang of students who hurled a glass "tear-bomb" at a tram driver on Parramatta Road. The man'was almost blinded, but averted an accident by stopping the tram. He then collapsed and was removed to Prince Alfred Hospital, "suffering intense agony." To-day he is reported to be prostrated by acute inflammation of the eyes, but it is hoped that he may be able to return to .his work in two or three days. Meantime the police are searching for the youth responsible. Unfortunately, the students who desire to be identified with the hoodlum class always make a point of emulating the gangsters, whom they admire so much, by refusing to answer any inquiries. This "conspiracy of silence" suggests a very low standard of conduct and a v6ry limited sense of public and social responsibility on the part of the students.