Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-01-28
"REMINISCENCES OF HAzINe.
How Some sophOmores Were Convinced
of Its Ungentlemaniiness.

How Some Sophomore Were Convinced
of Its Ungentlemanliness.
II never read accounts in the newspapers
| of the pranks Of college boys in 'hazing'
| the freshmen" said a white haired, rosy
| faced old New Yorker in the parlor OF a
big athletic club the other night, but my
| mind reverts at once to hazing scrape
got myself into in my salad days. Like all
sOphomores, was particularly intolerant
OF freshmen; much more so of course than
| the seniors.
We had been strictly forbidden by the
| faculty To do any hazing at all. under pen
atty OF expulsion, and 50 we could not get
together more than half dozen adventur-
| Gus souls who were willing TO take the risk
| in order To punish the freshmen properly
for daring to live and presuming to come
to the college at all. We had to do the
| thing quietly, 50 after all the lamps were
out we would steal from our rooms, meet
IN the corridor and then make a descent
on some lonely freshmen and do him up
without any unnecessary fuss.
we had operated successfully on two or
three men, only one in night, and were
enjoying the sport thoroughly The fol-
lowing night it became the turn OF a long.
rawboned. quiet. bashful youth from
Maine who had little or nothing to saw to
any one, and whose only care seemed to be
| to keep his hands and feet out of sight
We anticipated some rare sport with him.
and | remember now the naughty feeling
with which | strobe into his bedchanaber
at the head of our gang after we had prieI
his door open with one good twist of a real
burglars Jimmy
The other men had generally covered
under their beticlOthes or risen trembling
in their nightgowns and asked piteously to
be let alone. This Maine man iumped our
of bed, however, as if glad to meet US. He
said not word he made not a sound as
he moved about in the dark. but. oh my,
how he did swat Us. | never before eyue-
rienced such fiendish strength a. that fel-
low seemed TO have. We were not familiar
with his room, and it seemed to be full of
furniture, against which we stumbled and
over and under which he knocked Us in the
/ darkness with the precision and force of a
trip hammer. He seemed to have a cats
sight and he knew the room thoroughly.
and the way he damned US was 50 uDex.
pected that we got confused and lost our
reckoning in trying to get ont Of that in
fernal room again.
Il don't believe one of rs hit him once. |
know that after had caught a terrific
right handler on the tip of lay nose, which
| sent me backward over an awfulIy angular
coal scuttie, kept On my hands and knees
and wabbled about in blind search for
the door, with the blood pouring into my
mouth and over my shirt front.
He hit u with fists like hams. he threw
chairs at rs, he kicked Us. when we went
down, with his bare toes. which seemed as
hard a iron: lie jumped on our sromachs
with heels made tough by running bare
foot On his native shingly beaches, he
! maUled Us. he pulled our hair out. he
scratched ". he looSened our teeth. he
| broke our noses, he joccled our most in
tornal organs. he utterly demoYalized Us.
this whrlwind from Maine, and when at
last We all got out of his horrid den, more
alive than dead, and had had time TO col
lect cur shattered senses and make a ha>-y
estimate vi our cuts and abrasions, I said:
The Maine fellow must have gone out,
boys. and left gorilla in his bed instead. ;
But just then we heard that vicious
freshman call ont with a mocking laugh:
Now 20 to bed, little men. and come again
some other night when you're rested
This haZin's heaps Of fun
But we had decided that the sport was
unmaHly, anyway, and not the proper sort
of thing for Young gentlemen to engage
in. New York Tribune.