With the ghost of "Bloody Monday" night hovering just ahead of us, it behoves us to speak of some quaint old rites which in years gone by used to take place on this first Monday of the college year, and which marked a lower stage in the development of our mental and moral faculties; for we will not venture to suppose that the roots from which these ancient customs grew are still lying hidden in the college soil. Long ago, then, as we said, it used to be customary for the new-fledged sophomores to serve notices upon the budding freshmen, or otherwise violently communicate with them, to the effect that on this eventful evening free drinks should be standing ready for the august members of the sophomore class at which symposium the freshman hosts should prepare themselves for either use or entertainment. Of course these notices are accompanied with the usual threats in case of their refusal. It may occur to many of our modern student readers to wonder how such conduct could be reconciled with the principles which even in those darkened days must have been present with the perpetrators, and where the boundary-line ran between it and the highway assault and robbery. Such, however, was the false reasoning of drink-loving students that they argued: "What I now plunder from you, you may in turn plunder from those who will soon be in your position, and may sanction go with you."

Enough of such dark retrospects, Harvard has outlived thievish pranks and child's play, and we are glad of it.