Ann Arbor (Mich.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American
But ornamental hazing is quite a different thing. It is the sort most
indulged in by practical hazers, professionals, as it were; by juniors;
even by seniors; and as such is found to have many and varied forms.
Moreover it differs from the plain brand in that a genuine injury is, by
its application, wrought upon the hazee. Thus, a man may be lost in a
swamp and made to find his own way home by the tenets of the plain
hazing code; whereas, if, in the swamp, he is "injured," that is to say
if he is painted with iodine, if a broad pink parting is shaved across
his scalp, or if his hair is cut off in scrubby patches, he may quite
properly consider himself to have been allowed a taste of the ornamental
sort.
It may be seen from these distinctions therefore, that plain hazing is
really harmless; no one is hurt, unless, as not infrequently occurs, and
justly, the hazers, themselves; and as a consequence of this the
University authorities seldom concern themselves in these really feeble
attempts to smirch the honor and destroy the valor of the freshman
class, which in most instances is sufficiently lusty an infant to take
excellent care of itself.
For instance, no excitement is created by the appearance on the campus,
or even in the corridors of the recitation buildings, of a lanky youth
in exceedingly snug knee breeches who drags about behind him by a long
string a gaudy little horse on squeaking wheels. Indeed, men whose
height reaches a flat six feet have not infrequently ridden to classes
on very small tricycles to the ecstatic delight of certain upper
classmen and to the pitying sneers of their instructors.
As has been observed, the authorities of the University are not wont to
interest themselves in such manifestations of under-class idiocy.
But a hazing of the second sort!
That, truly, is a different matter.
There was the case of Cleaver, for instance, whose disappearance from
Ann Arbor on a wet night in March six years ago was telegraphed to every
paper of consequence in the country and which furnished a delectable
topic of conversation at faculty dinners for the entire two months of
his absence.
Hazed?
Of course he was hazed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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