Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/186

 bridge, in the midst of a particularly lively fusillade, a tutor left the hall declaring he could not breathe in an atmosphere of crockery. After another outbreak, a champion named Pratt was suspended, on the charge that he “did publicly in Hall insult the authority of the College by hitting one of the Officers with a potatoe” —perhaps peeled by himself but undoubtedly mashed on the Officer. (The crime, it will be noted, consisted in being a good shot: if Pratt had missed the Officer, very little would have been thought of it—and he might have got back his potato.) It was during one of these riots that young Prescott, the future historian, was struck in the eye by a piece of flintlike bread, an injury that ultimately caused his total blindness.

Besides these more stereotyped forms of revolt, the exasperated students flouted the discipline of the dining-hall by every variety of misconduct. The unfortunate tutors came in for all manner of contumely. Concerted shufflings on the sanded floor and long-drawn scrapings of chairs raised a devilish din. In 1807, “segars” were openly and defiantly smoked at evening Commons, probably disturbing the smokers quite as much as the “immediate government.” A more ingenious plan for exciting a general upheaval was carried out in 1791,