Omaha daily bee., 1907-03-10
HARVARD STUDENT STUNTS
Tests Required of the Candidates for
Secret Societies
HOW INVITATIONS ARE CARRIED ON
Boston Smiles InduIEentIy when n
Young Man on n Camel Races
Car or Another Pushes a
PerRmbulator.

BOSTON. March e.-Theodore Roosevelt
jr.. is both a Dlckey bird and a York.
Now that the two famous secret societies
have gathered him in, we Boston folks can
settle down into our usual indifference 10
student stunts.
These artless pranks are an old story
to us. When Harvard isn't initiating. tho
chances are that Tech or Tufts or some
other institution is. II has to be a weird
and wild performance to excite our jaded
appetites now.
1t is only because the presidents son
was going in that the local papers have
paid any attention to the limitations. Or
dinarily they would as soon think Of writ
ing up Bunker Hill monument as Of de-
scribing the performances of fraternity
candidates.
And yet some of these performances
certainly invite description. II they hap
pened anywhere else they would demand
1t. If, for instance, camel surmountsd
by wild eyed youth should hump itself
down Broadway, neither press agent nor
advertising scheme furnishing any of the
motive power, wouldn't the reporters chew
their pencils in delirious Joy? We think
they would.
Not so in Boston. Early this winter one
of the Dickey candidates were ordered to
get camel. mount 1t and race the trolley
car from the heart Of Boston to Harvard
Square in Cambridge. He did 1t. But
nobody except the passengers on the car
paid much attention to him.
The passengers took a wistful interest
In the performance because the camel beat
the car. The papers did not mention the
occurrence.
His Duty is Clear.
So also when a young man of hulking
build is encountered on Boylston street,
Boston's fashionable shopping district,
pushing a perambulator people merely
smile a patient, indulgent smile end pass
on. Half OF them do not even pause to
| observe that the young mans gaze is UNI
waveringly fixed upon a white rag tied
at the outer edge of the off rear wheel, 1t
being his present bounden duty to count,
by keeping tab on that rag, the number
Of revolutions performed by that wheel
between Copley Square and the Common
Apropos OF the Common one Of the can
didates this year was required to count
the trees therein contained, to write their
| numbers on the back of a bullfrog and TO
turn over the frog to the committee. An
room for evasion, was to count the hairs
on a guinea pig.
One Harvard youth OF pronounced Eng
lish appearance and manner was required
to get an old white plug of horse and
to ride at gallop out along the road which
Paul Revere took to Lexington and Con-
| cord. AS he numbered along he was re-
quired to shout to everyone he encoun-
| tered:
THE British are coming! The British
are coming!
This proved to be one of the most at
| tractlve stunts which the Harvard in.
| ventive genius has to its credit. Half
| the people couldn't understand what the
youth was yelling so they were petrifed
between amazement and alarm.
The half that could understand weren't
much better Off Most of them telephoned
! the insane asylum at Belmont, near the
| horseman's route, to report the escape of a
patient.
Kept Them shaken Up.
Another candidate, a six-foot hockey
player whose ordinary tread shakes the
average building, was required to go at
| a run whenever he went at all during the
three days of probation. He ran to meals,
he ran TO lectures. he ran from room to
room; he even ran to his bed at night.
1t is said that the campus was in a con-
slant tremor while his initiation was on
OF course the street car stunts are al
ways popular. That is, they are popular
with the limitations, who love to ride around
on the same car with their unhappy VIC
tim and see that he carries out orders
One OF the most joyous of this particular
variety of performances is begun by board