1885*

The Secretary and Mrs. Bayley are pleased to acknowledge the receipt of Christmas-New Year greeting cards from the following class members, namely, Warren Adams, Al Briggs, John Brooks, Charles Floyd, Otis Hovey, Harry Parker, Lorrain Weeks and Frank Whipple; the Secretary also received a loyal and a cheerful letter from our honorary class member, Miss Helen E. Melendy, who is in fairly good health, and still makes her home at Hotel Alvord, East Orange, N. J.; she expressed her deep appreciation for the resolution, passed by our class at its 55th reunion union last June expressing our regret at her absence.

The Secretary has recently received the sad news of the death on December 14th, of our classmate Arthur Lucas, (non-grad); Lucas left us at the end of our freshman year. He was an excellent student, strong minded and outspoken, his obituary notice will be found in this or the following issue of the MAGAZINE. Many of us will recall that during our freshman year, Lucas was the subject of a kidnaping episode which was quite "celebrated" in the annuals of the college; the facts briefly stated are as follows: our Freshman Class Dinner was to be held in mid-winter at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal, on the program for the exercises at the dinner, Lucas was scheduled to respond to the toast "The Class of '84," which, of course, were our sophomore enemies; Lucas roomed in Old Thornton Hall, our class was to take the midnight train for Montreal, the Class of '84, naturally resented the kind of burnt "toast" which Lucas was expected to deliver on them, they held a council of war and made plans to circumvent the purposed indignity to the sophomoric honor of their class, which was accomplished in the following high-handed manner, late in the evening, shortly before our class was to go to the station to take the midnight train for Montreal, four "strong-armed" stahuarts of the class of '84, drove up in the rear of Thornton Hall in a two horse sleigh with a driver, they quietly entered the hall from the rear, gained admittance to the room Lucas occupied on the ground floor, quickly overpowered him took him out to the waiting sleigh and swiftly drove to the hotel at White River Junction, where they engaged connecting rooms on the third or fourth floor, locked Lucas in one of the rooms and took away all his clothing; the kidnapers remained on guard in the enjoining rooms and next morning the kidnapers returned his clothing and paid his fare back to Norwich on the early morning train. Meanwhile, our class had taken the midnight train to Montreal, where the dinner took place as scheduled except Lucas was not there to "toast" the class of '84, the college faculty then very properly and promptly took action in this lawless and highhandedaffair and the four kidnapers were duly sentenced to several weeks of "rustication" in the quiet country town of Haverhill, N. H., there to meditate and reform, which they presumably did, for no similar "kidnaping" episode has since occurred in the college.

Secretary, Kimball Bldg., 18 Tremont St.

Boston, Mass.