Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1910 — SOPHOMORES DO FANCY STUNTS. [ARTICLE]

SOPHOMORES DO FANCY STUNTS.

Harvard Students Fnrahh Entertainment aa Price of Initiation. Staid old Cambridge had no need to journey across the bridge to Boston Thursday to enjoy vaudeville. It was right there in its midst, so to speak, and it was there “q. 5.,” or in sufficient quantity to please the most fastidious or the most exacting, the Boston Traveler says. Each, recurring year 100 students of “Fair Harvard,” for the greater part members of the athletic element of the sophomore class, are initiated into the mysteries of “The Institute.” Previous to this final ceremony these students are at the beck and call of the older members of the society and are forced to don old clothes and to do any old errand that may be demanded. Thursday a class of five initiates, the first to be put .through the sprouts since the Yale-Harvard game, occupied the center of the stage at Harvard Square and entertained a large and preciative audience for a considerable period. It was a free show, but that did not detract from its merit, and the neophytes performed their various parts with the. practiced abandon of accomplished artists. One neophyte had evidently been an understudy in the star role of "Ten Nights in a Barroom," for his specialty was to imitate a disciple of Bacchus and to reel about the streets plaintively crying: "Drink Is a curse. Oh, for one long curse!” Another, representing Napoleon, delivered a talk on his conquests, much to the delectation of his audience; while still another, attired as a ballet girl, splendid terpsiohorean performance, inter* spersed with-the rendition in a highpitched voice of the beautiful classic/ “Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?” The exhibition proved highly elevated and inspiring to the gathering and there were none present who was not willing to concede that each neophyte had paid his full entrance fee to the "institute” and should be accepted as a full-fledged member without question. If a man is reasonably economical he learns In time not to throw away his pipe and tobacco when ho quits smoking. „ '