Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 288, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1910 — FRESHMEN EAT LIVE FROGS [ARTICLE]

FRESHMEN EAT LIVE FROGS

Forced to Believe 80, but Get Oysters Instead—Other Novel Amusements. Philadelphia.—The latest device for torturing freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania Is to blindfold the victim, and, after propping open his mouth with a small oblong block, to tell him that he is on the verge of having a frog dropped down his throat, and then in its stead to. feed him a laiwe raw oyster. Raw eggs are used wlren oysters are not available. This method was found to work effectively after twenty blindfolded freshmen had been forced to chase frogs In the lily ponds In the biological gardens. A small hazing party, at which three “freshies” were introduced to several novel anti entertaining amusements, proved to be merely preliminary to a well organized and concerted attack on all the first year men in the dormitories. Beginning at 1 o’clock in the morning, they scoured the dormitories from the new Provost tower, at Thirty-sixth and Spruce streets, to the apex of the Triangle in search of freshmen, and by 5 o’clock, when their operations ceased, more than a score of sad, humbled and forlorn “freshies” crept quietly back to the rooms, dripping with the wet and mire of the “frog ponds" in (he Biological gardens. College had lost its rosy glow for them after four hours of torment at the hands of their upper classmen. "Come along, freshie boys,” the sophs coaxed, as ;they jimmied doors and climbed through windows by means of ladders conveneniently at hand from the recent building operations. All were allowed to put on clothes, but the more obdurate, who refused to dress were forced brusquely out into the chill night air clad only in pajamas. Those who were dressed wore their coats turned wrongside out and their trousers turned up to their knees. All were blindfolded and marched tn military formation to the “Biological gardens." They were forced to imitate boiling teakettles, to offer supplication to the

moon, sing songs and cheer for the sophomore class. They struggled until .breathless with Imaginary foes and were forced to deliver orations on absurd subjects. In the Biological gardens they were forced to rush furiously through the shallow ponds overgrown with lilies, in chase of frogs and, with the thought of frogs well in their minds, they were subjected to the torment of imaginary swallowing of batrachlans.