Sinful Stories

The Rum Row

Once upon a time there were some hard-boiled students who went to Victoria College but didn't get much of a kick out of it so they said lets take to booze may be that will go to our heads and make us into bright young things and so it did and they became very amusing which is a great improvement on just being simple highbrows. Now there were some other students who were quite icy where the brightness of young things was concerned and they said it is well known that University education is dry stuff and why not seeing its mostly wind but these fellows want to make it wet as well which is unthinkable weve nothing against water for that gets on the brain and makes you look intellectual but booze gives you spots before the eyes so they joined the Reform Party and got on the Executive and passed a rule saying asses milk must not be brought into the gymnasium except in human containers. This rule was a great success in a more or less sort of way but very soon the hard-boiled students get tired of having to come to the gym all lit up like 2YA which made it awkward for them when the methylated spirits and what not evaporated and left them in the middle of a dance or a debate with hogsheads of headaches and shiploads of shudders and no more mileage so they said what this show needs is a little more spirituality we don't mean in any crude religious sense but psychologically speaking or in other words in a Pickwickian manner that is to say spirituality as a frothblower would understand the term if he had any of the old College spirit. Then the Executive said all right bring on your old College spirit but remember its got to be dry gas like for instance debating or dramatics for we don't want an epidemic of hip disease in this joint and the hard-boiled students said you talk as if you owned the ten commandments and the Executive said we own more than ten and we'll take them down and dust them if you don't leave the mouse tonic outside. After thinking about this for a while the hard-boiled students joined the Dram Club because then they could do what they liked and people would think it was only acting and one day they came up to the College with a cartload of bottles and kegs and things and when the Executive said what have you got there they said props we are re-

Finish it off with a swing.

viving some of Shakesbeers plays such as Henry the Firth of Forth and the School for Shandies and Dope and the Face on the Bar-room Floor and this is the scenery and when the Executive sniffed and said it looks more like a brewery they said now by two-headed Janus nature hath framed strange fellows in her time o judgement thou art fled to brutish beasts and men have lost their reason you do unbend your noble strength to think so brainsickly of things what unutterably foul imaginations you must have begone begone and be psycho-analysed by Marcus Riske avaunt and quit our sight go to knaves go to. Then they tried to sell the Executive some tickets so the Executive went away but by and by they came back to the gym out of morbid curiosity to see how the revivalists were getting along not to mention the supper and judge of their surprise when they saw the actors lying all over the place snoring and crowds of lecturers and professors dancing around the stage singing we wont go home till morning and somebody was telephoning the Public Trustee to send up some more props but please to leave out the snakes and pink monkeys. Of course this was just innocent relaxation which now and then is relished by the wisest men particularly early Victorians but the Executive were very superficial people so they jumped to the conclusion that somebody had been turning it on and they held a mock trial and fined the Dram Club one pound and when the Dram Club wanted to kiss and be friends they fined them another pound but all they got was one pound which the Dram Club kept saying was two for they could see two as plainly as they could see the Executive although they couldnt understand why the Executive should be there in duplicate but perhaps two Executives were better than one which wasnt a very good one anyway. Well the Dram Club went home in a pantechnicon singing Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes and I'll Not Fail to Shout but save me one of those tearoom pies in case the drink runs out and the Executive said that was pretty easy money suppose we fine the other clubs as well theres none of them that hasnt done something except perhaps the S.C.M. which is short for the Slightly Christian Movement so they plastered fines all over the place until the clubs got shrewd and wouldnt break any rules at all then the Executive became worried and said this wont buy the baby a new gym so they set up a distillery in the Chemistry Lab and ran pipe-lines to the gym and all a student had to do was to enter and in five minutes the atmosphere of the place would make him so blotto that the Executive had no trouble in fining him everything he had in his pockets. The hard-boiled students thought this a retrograde step for it knocked all the advertising value out of booze and there wasnt any distinction any more in being drunk so they turned teaturtle which the Executive said was disloyal and done out of pure spite and the Executive went to the College Council and asked them to collect an extra fee from every student who couldn't produce evidence that he had been fined at least ten times for alcohalitosis which is Middle English for gymnasium breath and the Council said thank you for the suggestion which not only testifies to the good relations existing between the Council and the student body but is very welcome in these hard times and henceforth you shall all pay an extra College fee of one guinea for what is humorously called general tuition now run away dears and dont fall over yourselves as you depart. When the students heard of this they held an annual meeting and threw the Executive out through the window of their little plotting parlour on to the tennis court which explains why the asphalt is in such a rotten condition and then they asked Brookey to remodel the constitution which they were too superstitious to do themselves and Brookey said you just leave it to me I know exactly what to do to your old constitution and what happened after that nobody knows but it is always safe to expect the worst. And the moral of this story is one swallow doesnt make a drink but its an ill wind that blows nobody down and that concludes our relay from Victoria College which is beyond doubt a very rum place.—Wog.