1878*

321 Highland Ave., Fitchburg, Mass. Parkhurst's resignation seems a belated reminder that the class has had its stalwart representative on the Board of Trustees for a third of our century, and for twenty years of that period had two. Isn't that a record? At any rate it is something for the class to congratulate itself upon. Trustee resolutions pay tribute to the noble service Parkhurst has rendered, and to his great and continuing benefactions to the College. We do not yet know the total of Brown's bequest. Dividends still come. We hope it can be summarized before the class vanishes.

That was an interesting story last month of the founding of Paleopitus and its expanding influence in College affairs. Honor is certainly due the men who conceived it and who had the good sense to unshackle it after it started. Alumni of the old day may be interested in the origin of an earlier student cabal, not so high or so fine a tradition, but nevertheless a traditionand a noisy one—-,as related by one of the participants. It has a certain timeliness, too, in view of the honor now being paid to Henry Bergh, heroic founder of the two societies with long names, as marking progress in humane sentiment.

The Commissioners had their beginning at least in Wentworth where roomed Steve Young '79, whom Sum and A 1 Wallace had induced to come to college to run in races at college meets. Steve was not a great suc- cess in that line, but he loved to play the violin, and John Young, John Fox, Dan Rice, and several others of the group, used to meet in his room. Just at that time there was considerable activity by the society with the long name, some of which invited criticism. Someone wrote a parody on the work of the society. Steve would begin by impersonating a stranger just arrived, "The other day I landed in the City of New York"; then he ran on with his violin, reciting in a sing song air how he stepped on a cockroach or cricket or something of the kind, and was promptly arrested and fined, whereupon all joined in the chorus: "For I'm one of the commissioners And this I'll tell you now 'Twas cruelty to animals And that we don't allow."

This chorus was repeated with added emphasis after each of an endless number of such verses, and The Commissioners were liable to explode vocally anywhere, any time. So they became famous.

Secretary and Treasurer