a pity that such should be the case. There are
numbers of men fully able to win points at any of
these meets who have not the •vim or the ambition
to go in and train. Don't hold back because you
are a green man or a novice. That is just. what the
system of handicapping is for—to give encourage•
ment and better chances to the poorer performers.
The LANCE again appeals to you for your own in
terest and for the sake of the college come
out and try.
OHIO has passed a law making hazeing a pun
ishable offense. This is a step in the right
• direction especially if the reports of the
fun (?) indulged in by Ohio collegians are true.
The institution from which the worst stories pro
ceed is probably Ohio Wesleyan, at Delaware, Ohio.
The barbarisms seem not to be confined to haze
ing merely but crop out in society rivalries. The
latest tale has it that a Sophomore society broke
in on the initiation of a Junior society and bind
ing and gagging the participants, tatooed their
faces with silver nitrate in such a manner that
though good looking young men they may bear the
scars for life. Words are not strong enough to
condemn such actions. Savages could hardly
have thought of a more malicious trick. We can
only hope that the stories are of the same Arabian
Nights order, as the newspaper reports of the vis
it- of some of our boys to Pine Grove singing
school during the winter. If the facts bear out
the reports, we can only hope that the intelligent,
stable student body of the college will repudiate
the act and that the law will not deal lightly with
the miscreants who performed it. Barbarism is
barbarism no matter if the perpetrators are col
lege men.
* *
THE World's Fair is open at last. President
Cleveland, with the touch of an electric but
ton, set the great heart throbbing, and
breathed life into the yet incomplete but glorious
triumph of American art and genius. The exquis
THE FREE LANCE.
ite beauty, and appalling grandeur of the White
City will ever remain brilliant memories in the
minds of the millions who will then this sum
mer. If there is any possibility of one's getting
there, he is doing himself an injustice in not going.
It will be the spectacle of a lifetime. A few weeks
spent there will be an education in itself and the
LANCE will be sorry if every one of its readers is
not able to obtain at least a glimpse of the fair. It
hopes to greet its readers there as it rests in its
place among the other exhibits of the college.
BEGGING is at best a disagreeable occupation,
but we can not refrain from asking those
whose subscriptions are still unpaid, to pay
up as soon as possible. Next month will be our
last issue fcr the present college year, and yet there
is something like poo,oo in unpaid subscriptions
standing on the books. The LANCE is in debt, and
such delinquency prevents us. from gradually re
ducing this burden if in fact it does not increase
it. If the students wish to have a paper that
amounts to anything, one that will be a credit to
the college, they must turn in and support it loy
ally. The staff alone can not keep it up.
THERE has been agitation from some sources
to have the LANCE made more of a literary
publication. The idea is praiseworthy, but
it might be well to call the attention of its advo
cates to a few points against such a change. The
object of the LANCE is to be the student's organ.
It never was intended for a literary • magazine like
the Nassau Lit and other well known rablications
from which no doubt the idea has been borrowed.
Its function is to act at once as a newspaper and a
review. The personals are just as much of a nec
essary part of it as the editorials, while the locals
are probably its most important part. Not only
are the undergraduates to be catered to, but it forms
a link between the Alumni and their Alma Mater
giving all the news of the college and telling them
what the other Alumni are doing in its personal