Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/185

 the late Disorders in that Seminary.” By this it appears that at the end of the first week 74 students had signed the apology, 45 were “not implicated” (probably boarding out), and 99, of whom 22 were “unconnected” with the disturbance, had not signed—a total of 218, the same number mentioned by Tufts. Unfortunately, both parties were in such a desperate hurry that their publications were equally premature, got out during the first lull in the conflict, so that neither describes the extraordinary Conciliation Congress, although the Faculty’s narrative was obviously intended to influence the parents, and concludes with the confident prediction that the rest of the malcontents would soon sign.

Such were some of the gravest crises suffered by the College in maintaining its idea of Commons. The simplest and most popular expression of disapproval of the food, however, consisted in impromptu bombardments, when the offending meats, pies, and puddings (admirably adapted, it must be confessed, for missiles) were hurled about the room, followed in the more acute manifestations by the tableware and utensils. Vivid descriptions of these occasions abound in the records and traditions of the times. At New Haven, “600 tumblers, 30 coffee-pots, etc. were destroyed or carried off in a single term” of the early 1800’s; while at Cam-