the offending emblem was brought down on the second shot, to the
great satisfaction of the "laws." Less excusable was the method the
class of 1902 took to immortalize its victory over the "laws" by
painting the class numerals prominently on the soft sand-stone of the
Law Building, of which traces remain to this day for those who know
where to look. The guilty class was made to feel mightily ashamed of
itself for a while, but in after years it has proudly borne the title of
"Human Skunks" conferred upon it at the time.

Mass action has always been a favorite method of student expression. Of
this the organized "bolting" of the years just after the war is an
example. This went on to such a degree that it became necessary for the
Faculty to pass a resolution stating that "in the absence of an
instructor, his class shall be expected to remain until at least five
minutes after the ringing of the bell." Apparently this did not stop the
practice, and suspension or dismissal were threatened in 1867. This rule
was drastically applied in 1871 when a large number of freshmen and
sophomores, who had found Van Amburgh's circus more attractive than
their classes, were actually suspended. It is not difficult to trace in
this affair the origin of the song popular to this day, though its
application has been long forgotten:

We are going to the Hamburg show
To see the elephant and the wild kangaroo;--
And we'll all stick together, through rain or stormy weather,
For we're going to see the whole show through.

This ended that epidemic and bolting henceforth became individual and
not collective.

The burning of "mechanics" was also a popular rite, which in its earlier
days celebrated the completion of the course in physics under Professor
Williams. This time-honored ceremony took the form of a procession of
solemn officials which escorted the "corpus," borne on an elaborate
bier, to a place of judgment, where it was condemned most impressively
and executed with elaborate rites. The "corpus" was well guarded,--on
one occasion at least by eight juniors armed with bayonets,--from the
sophomores, who were infuriated by the fact that the head of the
intended victim, a skull furnished from medical sources, was crowned by
a mortar-board, the sophomore class insignia. A formal trial followed,
presided over by a Pontifex Maximus, in which a Judex, an Advocatus Pro,
and an Advocatus Con participated, with the foregone result tha