Class of 1886

Before the first juvenile court in Chicago, at the turn of the century, boys who broke the law were dealt with by the criminal courts for adults. A superintendent of a farm school for boys reported to the Juvenile Court in its early days that he had once received from a Chicago criminal court a boy whose commitment paper included these words: "He feloniously, burglariously, and maliciouslybroke into his stepmother's pantry andstole a jar of jam."

An incident of our '86 college days has just come to the Secretary's attention that in similar language might have been described thus: "An '86 man burglariously,feloniously, and maliciously broke into arival fraternity hall and stole the fraternityconstitution and list of members from thefounding to date."

However "burglariously and feloniously" this theft might have looked to the 1886 Hanover criminal law, the members of the rifled fraternity thought of their loss as due to a college prank.

In any case the felon escaped detection, and since his death his son has found among his father's papers the missing constitution, which he has returned to its rightful owner.

What is the moral? "When is a burglary not a burglary?" "Be sure your sin will find you out." "Our boys are more honest and better citizens than we were," etc. Let each reader point his own moral.

Secretary, 215 Walnut Street, Montclair, N. J. COLLEGE PRANK, DELINQUENCY OR FELONY?