STUDENTS ELECTION FIGHTS

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 138, 10 December 1908, Page 2

STUDENTS ELECTION FIGHTS

MINISTERS DEFEATED. SOMETHING LIKE "CAPPING DAY." (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 30lh Ootober. There was tremendous excitement over tho rectorial contest at the Scottish Universities, which -aro given a strong political colour New Zealand students, including a number of female medicals, took a leading part in the contests, parading the streets and marching oa the polling booths in a body. After fierce battles with peasemeal, flour, and yellow ochro round the polling halls, the eleotions resulted as below: — Glasgow (Previous rector, Mr. Asquith.) — Lord Curzon 947, Mr. Lloyd-George 935. Mr. Keir Hardie 122. Edinburgh (Previous rector, Mr. Haldane)—Mr. Wyndham 826, Mr. Churchill 727, Professor Osier 614. The Lord Rectorship of a Scottish Uni versity is an ancient post involving no work by tho modern occupant except the delivery of an address to the students. Tho candidates take no personal part in tho elections, which for years havo been fought on political lines. Tne voters aro tho matriculated (including women) s*u dents. The worst of the eleotion fights was at Glasgow. Tho students gathered round the door of the polling hall in primitive costumes the least likely to suffer damage in the fray. They opened with a com bined attack upon the beautifully uniformed commissionaires and attendants, who were soon reduced to the disreputable level of the students. Then the fight for strategio positions began. From a."im'inition waggons there pourn.d clouds -f peasemeal, soot, ochre, and eggs. The V»j3 ra i g ] le i c ] tno advantage for an hou I*,1 *, during which time not a voter of +^>c ~»her colour got info tho hall to sign hte namo. With a great rally the Conservative dislodged the Red I',1 ', who made superhuman efforts to run the blockado. Man after man was hoisted on to the shoulders of the garrison ; but for ono who succeedetl in walking over the swaying heads into the booth a dozen were sent back in tatters. The principal of, tho University had to declare that, unless tho passages were kept clear, the election would bo declared void. This raised the blockade. Many of the "injurod" had to be reclothnd from reserve trunks, a few had nasty cuts, and several suffered from sprains and dislodged limbs. Every voter had to run the gauntlet under showers of soot and flour, and .few -of tho Asiatic students faced the risk. In the Edinburgh quadrangle it was impossible to distinguish the combatants in the storm of 'ochre, soot, and various other coloured materials. The casualties wero surprisingly few, though now and again a student was put hors do combat.