Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 227, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1912 — SOPHOMORES WON TANK SCRAP [ARTICLE]

SOPHOMORES WON TANK SCRAP

Annual Contest Resulted in All Freshmen Being Tied Up* Marched to Stuart Field and Fainted. It is some scrap that the gingersnap kids have at the west side water tank at Purdue each year. It is a test, not only of strength and numbers, but of prowess and strategy. The nineteenth of these affairs was held Friday evening. Some of our readers don’t knew what a tank scrap is and having seen the one Friday night, we shall attempt to tell about it. Primarily it is to settle a dispute between the sophomores and the freshmen. The former, by their superior wisdom, have questioned the right of the new students to be alive and especially to be entitled to the respect of their superiors. -The freshmen have challenged this exaltation and in defiance have painted the numerals “16” on a big water tower a few blocks north by east of the campus. The challenge thus flaunted has the unanimous support of all who have the red blood of patriotism in their veins. They gather en masse on an appointed evening to meet the sophomores in combat, not mortal but desperately near to it. There are certain rules governing the fray. Slugging is not tolerated, kicking is prohibited, hair pulling is discouraged and there is a fine'line drawn between the rough and the molly coddle that it takes a microscope to discover. It is no * slap-you-on-the-wrist game by any means. Kids with mellow voices and candy in their pockets had better .stay at home. It is a lung tester and a chest developer; also a beauty destroyer and a haberdashery booster. But these comparisons and synonyms don’t get a fellow any place when he sets out to tell about a task scrap. r Suffice it to say by further preliminary that it takes all the spirit end dash and courage that a healthy college lad can muster. The audacious plebes are massed at the foot of a hill near the bone of contention, the numeral begummed tank. They shout a few hastily framed yells to the gesticulations of a leader who is able to bend in all conceivable shapes while directing the pronunciamentos of his classmates. Not many people are able to tell what is being shouted but they can see that/ it means defiance and trouble is fomented in a manner that would cause sodium and water to look like a placid happening. - , - But their volume of noise don’t bluff any one, and. in a short time a bunch of noisy sophomores arrive on the scene, headed by a torchlight procession. They have a little more euphony in their yellß and a little greater variety and a little more wind pressure. They form in battle line at the top of the hill. Some fellow with a match touches off a skyrocket and bedlam begins. A few war whoops are emitted from the sophomores, who start down hill hell bent for election. The freshmen at the same time start to an ascension of the battlefield. They meet with marvelous impact. That is about all that one can see in the dim Ught of the moon and the oil torches carried by the upper classmen. All of the combatants have ropes and these are used to tie the hands and feet of their adversaries. There Is a hum of defiant voices, and groans of anguish from the injured. One thinks of pictures he has seen of the battle of Gettysburg. The thousands of spectators surge about in an effort to find a place where they can see something that is going on. Every one asks every one who is getting the best of it and every one answers by telling what some one else Bald. The leaders of the two sides dash about directing the movements and putting steam into the almost exhausted combatants. The totally winded and otherwise injured fire carried to the rear and attended by doctors and volunteer Desdemonaa, who bend affectionately over the victims and plead with their eyes for their immediate restoration. And ttyere is nothing known to medical science that will bring a college boy back ,to life oo quickly as the perfumed breath and goo-goo eyes of a damsel of eighteen. But that is another story. It is a long story, too, and we haven’t the thne, nor space, nor inclination to take op a subject of this nature. It’s back to the tank ssrap for us. A hogwallow looks like a picnic ground compared to the battlefield The steam and sweat from the gladiators and smoke from the torches ' . , .