The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-10-18
Three ARE HURT.
Result of Annual Cane Rush at
Washburn.
About Time for the Faculty to
Make a Move.
STORY OF THE FIGHT.
Football Game Childish Sport in
Comparison.
Freshmen Won the Battle and
Carried in Canes.
STORY OF THE FIGHT.

If the Washburn faculty is not too
busy enforcing anti-footbau rules, 1t
should get to work enacting some anti
cane rush rules which will stop the an
nual carnage and prevent what is likely
to become a tragedy
Three men were seriously hurt in the
annual freshman-sophomore cane rush
last night. one man was kicked in the
head and rendered as crazy as bed
bug for some time. Another man was
walked over until he had to be carried
home. A third man had his internal
anatomy disarranged by somebody's
knee which was damned into his StOm-
ach. The three men were all freshmen.
Their names were Tice, Miller and
johnson. Tice and Johnson both sus-
tanned internal injuries, and are in bed.
Such injuries as they received often
prove fatal.
The fight last night was unusually
savage. TWenty-SeVen freshmen
fought to get into the chapel, and their
efforts were opposed by fourteen sopho-
nnores. Such men as Cunningham, Mem,
Cook and Haynes, all members of the
football team and giants in strength,
were on the sophomore side, which par.
TALLY equalized the struggle. For half
an hour the battle ragged on the chapel
steps, in the lobby and on stairs and
landing leading up to the assembly
room. Boys were hurled backwards
down the stone steps, struggling forms
staggered back and forth, tripping each
other and falling in a heap under the
feet of the mass of crazy collegianS,
eyes were BACKED. the heavy oak stair
cases creaked as the dense jam of mad
dened students plunged and pushed, and
howled, in a dense cloud of dust which
arose from the Earring floors. Wild to
get past the stubborn line of defense,
the freshmen climbed up on the outside
Of the staircase, clinglng to the heavy
banisers, only to be gripped and chok-
ed and hurled headlong to the floor. In
the midst of the dense jam at the foot
of the stairs was a bundle of canes,
which the freshmen were trying to take
with them up into the chapel. The mass
swayed back and forth across the lobby,
now crashing into the wall at one side,
now stumbling and falling up the stairs
at the other; there were groans, and
grunts, and bowls and heavy breathing,
compounded into a peculiar roar with
the scuffling feet, the air was hot and
heavy with the sickening OdOr of per-
spring bodies; dust arose in sitting
clouds, and dimmed the electric lights
so that the fight went on in a sort of
sulphurOuS twilight. Now and then a
PROSTATE body was dragged out of the
melee, and left outside of the zone of
battle. Above the din and confusion, in
wild cadence, rose the shrieks and
screams and class yells of the thirty
freshmen girls, who were massed on one
of the stairWays overlooking the field
of battle With all the ferocity of
Amazonian warriors, they screamed en-
couraging words to their hard-pressed
classmates below.
Little by little the overwhelming su-
pericrity of numbers in the freshman
class began to tell. The SODhOmOreS,
exhausted by the terrific resistance they
had been putting up, were obliged to
drop out of the contest, one or two at
time, to catch breath. Now a freshman
plunged clear through the sophomore
lines and gained the landing at the
head Of the first flight of stairs. Two
sophomores grabbed him and sent him
whirling down into the midst of his
brothers But while they were doing
this two or three more freshmen charged
up the stairs and then, the breach once
made, the whole freshman crowd or as
many as could walk. went charging up
the stairs, bowling, and closely guarding
their canes. The sODhomores Wer e
brushed aside and the freshmen. canes
and all rolled into the chapel in one
cheering mob.
There were about forty canes in the
bundle. OF these the soohomores cap
tured only three. two of which were
broken before they could be taken away
Compared with last nights cane rush.
a IOOlDdu game Is childish and innocent
sport, devoid of all danger and suitable
for invalidS and convalescents The
cane rush is dangerous, and if it is al
IoWed 10 continue in its present form
somebody is pretty certain to get killed
1t is not so much the character of the
rush" which is good natured enough
but 1t is the place where the rush takes
RleA1C- vi lIlt stone steps ana oak stair
ways, contest which on a level foot
ball field would be only rough and
tumble, becomes brutal and dangerous.
a cane rush, as presented annually at
Washburn, is nothing much but a foot
pail game played on a stairway with
out any intermission for downs" If
the freshmen and SODhOmOres are Do
termined to have a cane rush. the fac
ulty should compel them to stav out OF
doors and fight it out
It used to be the custom to hold the
cane rush on the same evening with III.
annual open meeting of the Washburn
college Literary society. Nowadays. the
open meeting is held on the same even
ing with the cane rush. 1t was 9.Sn
O'Clock last night when the cane rush
was over, and the open meeting com
menced, and apparently the programme
OF the meeting was rushed through 50
tnat the rush might be resumed after
Inc soDhomOres made feeble effor+
10 take away the bundle of canes when
me freshmen came out from the chanel.