By April C. Armstrong *14

In this week’s installment in our recurring series, a particularly warm Commencement makes the news, civilians are outnumbered, and more.

June 30, 1859—The New York Times describes Princeton during Commencement:

It is one of those days when chickens run around the barn-yards with open beaks and distended wings; when shirt-collars have a decidedly despairing look, and when their owners eddy into every room which displays the sign ‘Ice Cream’ or ‘Soda Water with choice Syrups,’ as instinctively as chips or leaves seek out every nook along the brook side. … the temperature was up to the melting point during the continuance of the exercises, and it was not at all to be wondered at that President McLean should have found his silk gown so uncomfortably warm that he slipped it off his shoulders at every convenient opportunity; that fat men should have put on an air strongly suggestive of SIDNEY SMITH’s receipt for keeping cool on a warm Summer’s day,–to take off your flesh and sit in your bones;–nor finally was it at all surprising that young ladies should have found it a great more comfortable to talk to their neighbor than to listen to dry disquisitions from the stage, until President MACLEAN felt called upon to administer them a severe rebuke for their want of attention.

July 4, 1839—Upon request by the Board of Trustees, faculty expel a member of the sophomore class because of his attempt to murder a local tavernkeeper. After declaring that he “would be the death of” the man, R. Kennon Smith of the Class of 1841 aimed a loaded pistol at him and fired. A witness knocked Smith over at the time of firing the gun, so the bullet hit the ceiling instead of its target.

July 5, 1943—There are 2,720 students enrolled at Princeton University, of which only 635 are civilians.

June 6, 1926—In response to a complaint about a $1.50 fare being charged to Kenneth McAlpin (Class of 1905) for the trip from Palmer Stadium to the train station following the Harvard-Princeton track meet, the taxi license for Lorenzo Ferrara, cab number 58, has been suspended until this date for charging in excess of the rate permitted under the local ordinance.

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Did you read the previous installment in this series?

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