Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 200
Philosophical Society Meets
(As it used to forty years ago)
Last night the Philosophical Society held the third of its bi-weekly beer parties in the supper room of the men’s residence. After the reading of the minutes, coupled with the drinking of beer, followed by the usual routine of drinking the health of the outgoing officers of the week and the toast of welcome to the officers of the week following, the Chairman invited the members to fill their glasses and listen, if they cared to, to a paper by Mr. Easy on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. Mr. Easy, while expressing his regret that he had not had time to prepare a paper on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, delivered in place of it an excellent rendition of Bret Harte’s “Heathen Chinee.” At the close of the recitation the Chairman announced that the debate which had been announced on the topic Are Mathematical Judgments Synthetically a Priori had been abandoned owing to the fact that the topic involved more preparation than the members of the society were prepared to give to it. He suggested instead that the society, after filling its glasses, should invite Mr. Freak of the senior class to give his imitation of two cats quarreling on a roof. The invitation was followed by similar exercises and the meeting was sustained to a late hour, those of the members who went home leaving at about two a. m.
Philosophical Society Meets
(As it does today)
Last night a very pleasing meeting of the Philosophical Society was held in the parlour of the Women’s Residence in the Martha Washington Building. Professor Strong in opening the meeting, said that she was glad to see among the members of the society a very creditable number of men, if she might use the phrase. She said no professor could feel that her work was satisfactory unless she could attract a certain number of men students. The professor then read her paper on the Sociological Elimination of the Delinquent. As the paper only lasted an hour and a half it was listened to in a luxury of enjoyment. The professor then having thrown the meeting open to questions, and a question having been asked, she very kindly spoke for another hour. At the close of the address a vote was taken on the resolution That the Humbler Classes of Society Ought to be Chloroformed, and was carried unanimously.
Discipline Committee Reports
(As it reported forty years ago)
The report is published this morning of the semi-annual meeting of the Discipline Committee of the Faculty of the College. This committee, consisting of the senior professors of the Faculty, was established, as readers will recall, about two years ago with the object of elevating the moral tone of the student body by expulsion, fines and the application of the criminal law. The Chairman reported that the committee had every reason to be gratified with the progress made during the period of its existence. The number of cases of suspension of students from lectures had increased under the operation of the committee by forty per cent; students warned, by sixty per cent; students found guilty of drunkenness, by seventy per cent; and students expelled for unbecoming and insubordinate conduct, ninety-five per cent. The report enumerates a new schedule of fines calculating to raise still higher the discipline of the institution, and recommends hereafter that every student guilty of striking or kicking a professor be brought before the committee and warned. The committee adds a further recommendation to the effect that measures be taken to let the student body understand that their presence at the University can only be tolerated within reasonable limits.
Student Control Committee Reports
(As it reports today)
The report is published this morning of the semi-annual meeting of the Students’ Control Committee at the University. This Committee, as readers will recall, was established about two years ago with a view to raising the academic standard of the college. It is empowered not only to institute inquiries as to the capacity of the professors, but to recommend the expulsion of those of them who seem to the students’ committee to be lacking in personality, or deficient in pep. The opening pages of the report deal with the case of the president of the college. A sub-committee, appointed from among the fourth year students in accountancy, have been sitting on the case of the president for six weeks. Their report is in the main favourable, and their decision is that he may stay. But the sub-committee pass severe strictures on his home life, and recommend that he has too many children for him to be able to give full attention to his college work, and suggests a change in the future.
The committee accepts and adopts the recommendation of the second year class in philosophy who report that the professor’s lectures are over their heads, and ask for his dismissal. A similar request comes from the third year students in mathematics who report that the professor’s lectures are below their standards.
The committee has received and laid upon the table the report of the fourth year class in commerce to the effect that they have thus far failed to understand any of the lectures that were ever given them, and ask that they be given their degrees and let go. The committee acknowledges in its report the gratifying statement made by the chairman of the Trustees in his annual report to the effect that student control marks another milestone on the arduous path that it is leading the college to its ultimate end.
Little Glimpses of the Future in America
I
The Final Solution of the Transportation
Problem
(An Extract from the New York Daily press of 1930)
RESUMPTION OF THE MAIL COACH SERVICE
We are happy to announce to our readers that the mail coach service between New York City and Philadelphia, which has been temporarily suspended since 1840, is to be resumed this week. By a fortunate chance the well-known and highly popular coach, the Martin Van Buren, has been discovered still in her yard, where she was placed when she was set aside pending the experimental use of the railway, which has proved such a costly failure. Under the new arrangement, passengers booked for Philadelphia are guaranteed of departure and arrival at the hour specified. Subject only to the hazards of the weather, the Martin Van Buren will leave her place of departure (The Andrew Jackson Hostelry, corner of Wall Street and the Albany Post Road) at or about daybreak on the morning of every Monday. This commodious coach has accommodation for ten inside and ten outside passengers. There is ample accommodation in the boot for all parcels and personal luggage. Passengers desirous of putting luggage in the boot, however, are requested to come to the booking office three days in advance to effect the necessary signature of vouchers, and to take the necessary oaths of allegiance and citizenship.
In order to avoid the present delays in the operation of the tunnel traffic, the Van Buren will be taken across the river on a barge. Passengers may keep their seats during the transit, or, for a small extra fee, may be carried across (if the wind serves) in a hoy. The Van Buren will proceed at full speed across New Jersey. Absolutely no stops will be made except for the change of horses, for meals, and for the night.
When the moon serves, the Van Buren will continue her journey, still at full speed, until 9 P. M. She will arrive in Philadelphia, barring being struck by lightning, on the afternoon of the third day out of New York. The greatest satisfaction is expressed everywhere in business circles over the prospect of the speed and certainty offered by the new service. A peculiar and pathetic interest attaches to the fact that the four horses which drew the Van Buren on her last trip out of New York are all dead.
Other similar ones, however, have been secured from the hansom cab service of Fifth Avenue. Many of those who have seen the new team declare that it is hard to believe that they are not the original horses.
II
Form of Application to be Used in the
Not-Very-Far Future in Trying to Secure
a Hotel Room
(1) Letter from the Applicant.
The Management,
The Soakus Hotel,
New York.
Dear Sirs:
I beg to apply for a room, to be available for my use one month from the present date and usable for one day. I am a young man of good habits, a Presbyterian, a graduate of Harvard and a non-smoker. If you will see fit, Sirs, to trust me with a room I shall do my utmost to occupy it in a way entirely to your satisfaction. My testimonials are enclosed herewith.
Very faithfully,
Edward Eatanything
(2) Testimonial from the President of Harvard.
The Management,
The Soakus Hotel,
New York.
Dear Sirs:
This is to certify that Mr. Edward Eatanything attended the undergraduate course at Harvard for a number of years and obtained the Baccalaureate degree in Arts. His course included English Literature Courses 1, 2 and 6, Mathematics 4 and 5, and Latin 6 and 8. I consider him in every way fitted to occupy your room.
Very faithfully,
—— —— —— —— —— ,
President, Harvard University.
(3) From the Pastor of the Broad Street Second Baptist Church.
The Management,
The Soakus Hotel,
New York.
Dear Sirs:
My young friend, Mr. Edward Eatanything, informs me that he is an applicant for a position as a roomer under your management. He was for over four years a member of my congregation and I have great pleasure in testifying that the level of his spiritual life is so high that you can with safety place him even on the top floor of your hotel.
Very faithfully,
—— —— —— —— —— ,
Pastor.
(4) Certificate from the Metropolitan Emergency Guarantee and Insurance Company.
To Whom it May Concern:
Mr. E. Eatanything is insured in and by this company in compensation for all possible accidents resulting from rooming in a hotel. Any management permitting him to occupy a room is hereby assured that the Metropolitan Guarantee Company will see that he leaves the room, either alive or dead, at daybreak of the day following his occupancy.
(5) Answer from the Soakus Hotel Company.
Mr. Eatanything.
Dear Sir:
We have much pleasure in informing you that your application for a room has been accepted by the Board of Pardons of this hotel and ratified by the Conciliation Council of the Waiters’ Union. The room will be ready for your occupancy at midnight of the day mentioned and you are requested to leave it at or before daybreak. An extra charge will be made for sleeping in the bed, or for the use of the window.
III
List of Honour, Pullman Company Announcement
for March, 1930.
At a meeting of the Directorate of the Pullman Car Company, lower berths were awarded as follows for the month of March. The names mentioned below have been placed in order of merit. Here follow after the custom of the epoch the full honour roll of those to whom lower berths have been given.
IV
If the Immigration Laws Keep on
Improving.
(Extract from an article in a National Encyclopedia
of 1975, entitled, — Deportation, Rise and Growth of)
The practice of deportation first originated in the years of the Great War, during which the United States, aided by the Serbians, the Siamese, and other allies, conquered Germany. It was first applied to the Reds or Radicals. It proved an immediate success. The demand at once arose for the deportation of other classes of the community. The deportation of the Socialists and the Syndicalists was carried out in the years 1925-1930. The next deportation was that of the entire population of Paterson, New Jersey. A slight opposition was raised in the press at the time, but the improved appearance of the city of Paterson after the inhabitants were removed silenced complaint.
The decade following witnessed the deportation of the Osteopathists, the Chiropodists and the Homeopathists. The movement now assumed a racial or ethnographic character. In spite of furious opposition it was decided to deport the Irish and to insist on their living in Ireland. The claim of the Irish that they were law-abiding citizens threw the case into the Supreme Court where, after the dynamiting of three of the justices, the survivors held that the plea of the Irish was good. A similar claim raised by the Greek fruit sellers (see under Peanuts) was held void. The movement now assumed a distinctly religious character. The deportation of the Presbyterians may be said to have marked an epoch. All those who witnessed their departure from New York harbour, when a hundred pipers played Lochaber No More upon a hundred sets of bagpipes, felt that they never wanted to go through such an experience again (see under Music, Definition of). This deportation was followed by that of the Mayflower Society, the Sons and Daughters of the Revolution, the Mexican War Veterans, and other bodies whose existence had become a national danger. Of late years the deportation movement has undergone a marked decline. The new sense of emptiness and space is inducing a feeling of loneliness throughout North America. Open regret is now expressed at certain of the deportations. It is widely felt that it was a mistake to send the Grand Opera Artists, the Choral Societies and other harmless bodies out of the country. It is expected that the present decade will witness a turn of the tide (see under Tide).
V
The Socialization of the Church
(A paragraph taken from any local paper in any
Country Town in the year 1930)
The Vaudeville and Minstrel Show put on at the Fourth Street Church last night was in every sense a marked success. The occasion proved that the choice of the new pastor is indeed an admirable one. We have never, even at the Gaiety Theatre, seen better black-face work than that of the Rev. Mr. Hopgood last night, while his buck-and-wing dancing is better than that of any spiritual worker seen among us for a decade. Several of the elders and church-wardens as end-men almost rivalled the honours of Mr. Hopgood. The dancing of the ladies of the congregation, who formed the chorus, particularly pleased us. Altogether we felt the Chairman was quite justified in his boast that the Modern Church has put the saloon out of business.
VI
If the “British Lecturer” Habit Grows
(Items from a New York Daily of 1933)
King George V lectured to a fair-sized audience at the Princess Theatre yesterday afternoon. The King’s delivery is quite good and the comments on his personality are quite encouraging. Interviewed at the Biltmore today, King George expressed his surprise and pleasure at the size of America for which he prophesies a bright future.
Binghamton, N. Y., May 2. Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Georges Clemenceau have made a favorable impression here with their Readings from the Treaty of Versailles.
The British Ambassador has been accepted for the summer season work of the Orpheum Circuit. His platform work in his first appearance at Mauch Chunk, Pa., is pronounced decidedly good. His work will do much to create a better feeling between Singapore and Siam.
My Unposted Correspondence
IT IS AN old adage that second thoughts are best. This is especially true when second thoughts are fortified by the inertia of a lazy disposition, averse to trouble.
Like many other people, I find myself constantly impelled to write letters upon sudden impulse, or at least to frame them in my mind. But whether written or only “framed” — a much more agreeable process — somehow they never get posted.
These letters are addressed, for example, to the Directors of Theatres to tell them that their place is a fire-trap, and that I, for one, never propose to enter it again, and that, therefore, such poor profit as they are able to make must henceforth be made without me. But on second thoughts — after all, what if the place is a fire-trap, why bother? Let the other people burn. And, anyway, I rather think they are to have a musical revue there the week after next which I might like to see. Better chance it.
Another set of letters are framed to the Immigration Authorities in the United States, to tell them that I cannot consent to this everlasting questioning at the border. If the thing persists, I tell them frankly I must stop coming and going into their country. Indeed, I find that this is the general view of people, of both nations who come and go across the Canadian border. I have listened to conversations in the smoking end of the Pullman car which would make the President of the United States shake in his shoes. Once or twice I have almost written a strong letter. Nothing stopped me except the fear that they might take me at my word and keep me out.
But at other times the letters are not only “framed” but all written and signed, and only held back through the momentary difficulty of finding an envelope.
Witness this example:
Letter of Protest to the Light, Heat, and
Power Company.
Sirs,
Your account for $41.85 just received this morning convinces me you are a pack of robbers. This bill which professes to represent an unpaid account for three month is incorrect. I paid you before. I know I did. The mere fact that I have got no receipt or anything of that sort is neither here nor there. I know I paid you because I have a distinct feeling that I have paid you.
This is a feeling which you ought to respect. My wife also remembers distinctly that she paid your collection man, or at any rate a collection man, at the door. And, anyway, look at the account itself. It is absolutely preposterous; six dollars for cooking-gas in one month! It can’t be. We live plainly and, by Heaven, you couldn’t use six dollars’ worth of heat on all that we eat in a month if you tried. Then look at this charge for electric lighting. What is all this stuff about Kilowatts? I never had any Kilowatts from you. And you have charged me apparently for thousands of them. My strong conviction is that that man of yours who reads the meter is a hired scoundrel.
