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Web Exclusives:
Under the Ivy April
23, 2003: Rites
of spring Late April in Princeton: Houseparties anticipation, room draw, Triangle. To a dreamy alum, it seems as if the world must ever have been so — and as it turns out, it has, at least for 70 years. Indeed, as William Dinsmore '33 began his On the Campus column of April 28, 1933, "This week's perennial fact is the houseparty weekend." He tells us that the annual bacchanal was almost cancelled because of world events and national economics, but fortunately, the Interclub Council was able to work the books in favor of the party. Good thing, too, because the year brought the end of Prohibition, which had been in effect for the entire preceding decade. "With the first excitement much abated, Princeton is now taking legal beer as a matter of course," Dinsmore reported. That is, until three seniors in a letter to the Daily Princetonian accused the Nassau Inn — students' favorite hangout — of price gouging. The maitre d' rushed to explain to the Prince that beer was still hard to come by. Apparently all was put right, for Dinsmore went on to say that at the Nass "the amber liquid is flowing as freely as it ever did... Already the 1933 version of the old-time record has been installed — fifty glasses at one sitting." A less pleasant spring ritual is, and was, room draw, and Dinsmore's description is both priceless and timeless. "In a couple of weeks our estimable dormitory clerk, Mr. Slayback, will conduct the annual room drawings in the approved impartial manner. Meanwhile, designing undergraduates will invade the Stanhope Hall sanctum and plague the unruffled Mr. Slayback with their energetic efforts to secure certain choice rooms, by fair means or foul. Since the means proposed are usually extra-legal in character, if not foul, Mr. Slayback will plead lack of authority to permit such fundamental disregard of the regulations, and refer the supplicants to Edward MacMillan '14, who superintends the ground and buildings from the floor above. After listening with a degree of patience little short of remarkable to the supposedly peculiar merits of each case, Mr. MacMillan will expound the law and give no satisfaction in a pleasant and confidential sort of way." At least students of Dinsmore's era did not have to contend with the perils of room-selling, a phenomenon of the previous century that PAW revealed in a short item on the page preceding Dinsmore's column. When editors of the Prince came across a poster announcing "Room for Sale: 20 South East," they brought it to PAW, who turned to "that encyclopedia of Princeton information, Secretary V. Lansing Collins 1892." Collins explained first that 20 South East referred to a room in the south entry of erstwhile East College, torn down in 1897; he went on to say that the poster was "a relic of the time-honored system of room-selling. ... An official appraiser from the treasurer's office set the 'official' price; but that was seldom the price actually paid. The scandals finally became so blatant that the subject was taken up by President Patton in a scathing address at a Sunday afternoon chapel service." Another time-honored tradition, of course, is Princeton's Triangle
show, which Dinsmore reported was being parodied, rather untraditionally,
by a production at Theatre Intime that carried 12 songs performed
by a six-piece orchestra. The name of the revue? Froth and Foam:
An Intimate Re-Brew, "for which we see no excuse," concluded
Dinsmore.
Jane Martin ’89 is PAW's former editor-in-chief. You can reach her at paw@princeton.edu
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