Last Saturday evening the convention appointed to make a final decision regarding the Yale-Princeton game met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York. The following delegates were present: Princeton, Captain Savage, C. Bird, and H. Hodge; Yale, Captain Corwin, Frank G. Peters and Walter C. Camp ex-captains of the eleven; Harvard, Captain Brooks, E. G. Kent and ex-captain Appleton; Wesleyan, Messrs. Stevens and Beattie; University of Pennsylvania, Messrs. Young and Posey. Mr. Savage presided. As soon as he had taken the chair, Captain Corwin of Yale moved that the championship for this year be awarded to Yale. Mr. Bird, delegate from Princeton objected that the championship could not be awarded because Yale and Princeton won four games each; that Thursday's game was no game according to the decision of referee Harris. He added that the Princeton delegation would withdraw if Yale agreed to go out with them and leave the final decision in the hands of Harvard, Wesleyan and the University of Pennsylvania, the three remaining colleges represented in the convention. This proposition was followed by a long and very heated discussion in which many conflicting opinions were maintained with considerable vigor. Finally the Yale delegates gave their consent and withdrew from the meeting together with the Princeton delegates.
The reading of a telegram from referee Harris in which he gave, as his final decision, that the game was a draw, excited much indignant comment on the side of Yale.
After debating until 11 o'clock the convention adopted the following resolutions:
Resolved: that this convention has voted that we cannot as a convention, award the official championship for 1886.
Resolved: that Yale according to the points made should have won the championship.
These resolutions were signed by the representatives of Harvard, Wesleyan, and the University of Pennsylvania.
The Yale men expressed themselves as satisfied with the decision of the convention on the ground that it practically declares Yale champion for 1886. The Princeton delegates were less contented with the decision and would have preferred an absolute one in favor of Yale or Princeton. They would have been perfectly willing to agree to it if it had unreservedly awarded the championship to Yale. A number of witnesses were examined in the course of the convention and the following gentlemen acted as arbitrators: Messrs. Appleton and Brooks of Harvard, Stevens of Wesleyan, Posey and Young of the University of Pennsylvania. The halls of the Fifth Avenue Hotel were alive until a late hour with students discussing the whole matter, which will afford the Yale News and the Princetonian such unlimited material for the remaining months of the year.
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