"HAZING.”

Temuka Leader, Issue 1219, 19 August 1884, Page 3

"HAZING.”

Every one in America knows of the trick that was played some years ago at Princeton college, at which time the custom of “hazing” in a really brutal manner was so prevalent. The hazing gang of sophomores that year was so rough and cruel that the faculty was at its wits’ end to devise some means for its suppression. One or two oases of severe and lasting bodily injuries to the victims placed so serious an aspen upon matters that applicants for scholarships were few. At this juncture the father of a new man, who had incurred the enmity of the hazers by stubbornly resisting their attacks, conceived an ingenious idea. He quietly hunted up Sullivan, the American champion prize-fijhtsr, took him to the Princeton, had a conference with the President of the college, asd the same day the champion, who boro the appearance of a meek-looking young man with eye glasses and a bad cough, was entered as a student, and assigned a room in the dormitory. That night about twenty of the “ Wahoos, as the hazers called themsclrer, stole softly to the new member’s room. Having arranged their "ear-twisters,” "toe-pinchers,” and other instruuents of torture to their satisfaction, they took off their coats, rolled up their sleeves, and tapped gently on the door of their victim* who mildly them in. ; The invaders lit the gas, and behold the newcomer lying in bed smoking a cigarette, and benignly regarding the mob through his goggles. , “ Get up there, Preshie. We’re gc-ag to have some fun with you,” they said. " Not really ? ’ said the victim,, with a hollow cough. "Yes;look spry now!” " Well if I must, I suppose I must,” whimpered the new man, jumping out on the floor. The hexfc moment the ringleader of the inquisitors got a "facer ” that drove him clear across the room and through the sash of a window. The survivors of what followed all agree that language entirely fails to do j ustice to the scene, Sullivan kicked the door shut, »nd then sailed in and began piling up the dead. Some of them didn't get round again for three weeks, and half-a-dozen badly flattened “ Sullivan ” noses can be seen in this years’ graduating class. This is the story most of our readers have heard. The result was to entirely abolish "hazing” at Princeton until the beginning of the present session, When the old custom started with renewed vigour. , , A student named Harrison, from Cleveland, learned that his den was to bo raided upon a certain night. That day he repaired to the outskirts of the town, and, by means of a cabbage, decoyed to his room under cover of darkness, a peculiarly vigorous and vindicative biPy goat, the terror of .that quarter. He kept the animal in a pacific, frame of mind by much provender until the hour for assault. When the freshman heard the stealthy gathering of the clans outside the door, he turned off the gas, gave the goat a few jabs with a pen-knife to liven it up, and dodged behind the door. As soon as the besiegers had rushed in he shut the door, looked it, and hastily climbed over the wardrobe, being just in time to escape the first rush of the billy, who knocked three of the men over the bsd the very first rush. ’ . ■ ■ , The pandemonium of shrieks, curses and butts lasted for some five minutes. Then a forlorn hope of battered hazers managed to grope their way to the door and tear it open. As they stumbled out into the now crowded h'\ll half a hundred excited voices asked what the matter wae. “Matter?” gasped one of the worst used up of the gang. " Why they’ve rung that Sullivan in on us again.”