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THE MAROON TIGER
Page 3
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Varieties
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CONCERNING THESE LATE THIEVES
By L. Raymond Bailey, ’34
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) Complete In May Issue |
I
“ANTEDELUVIA
A Montrosity
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“Stick ’em up!” commanded a desperate hold-up man
as he whipped out a huge and ugly Smith & Wesson
“Graveyard Special” (or some other brand) revolver
and poked it into the ribs of his astounded and badly
frightened victim-to-be, or, better, the victim-supposed-to-
have-been-that-never-was, and almost simultaneously two
sharp eyes stretched to their limit, two loose arms
swung wildly, and two light feet left the earth as if by
magic, and a very familiar man’s form split the air
in abrupt and lightning-like departure, leaving behind
a cloud of dust despite the heavy downpour of rain, to
seek a change of environment. After the first few miles
our disturbed library attendant for the magazine room
and worthy alumnus, Mr. Randall, slowed down long
enough to look back for the first time to see if his ad
versary was anywhere in the imme
diate vicinity, and after finding that
no one pursued, decided to run a
few more miles for good luck before
stopping to rest. Poor burglar! he
had been blinded by the dust and
ere it cleared away he could not de
termine which way his intended vic
tim had gone except that he had
left the point of contact.
On an earlier occasion, W. !N.
McGlockton suffered the misfortune
to be held up on Beckwith Street,
just in front of Dr. John Hope’s
residence, and was kindly relieved of his watch, foun
tain pen, and other more or less valuable articles (most
ly less) that “might prove anyway cumbersome to him.”
Since that day, McGlockton has been trying to get his
hair back down to the place where it was before the in
cident to say nothing of the efforts to stop his ribs from
trembling. On more than one occasion several More
house men have been the unwilling and scared witnesses
to a series of hold-ups at Yates & Milton’s drug store—
on the ill-fated corner and rendezvous. It certainly isn’t
healthy the way those poor fellows have skinned their
knees and suffered internal disturbances as results of
violent trembling during hold-ups.
To climax the whole situation, our own W. N. Jack-
son, the dear big-shot editor of this paper, and Scott
“Lancelot” Barrett have reported that the pants to their
pajamas have been stolen and that they have been forced
to borrow from their roommates some discarded win
ter underwear to fill the gaps created by the aforemen
tioned thefts! This business is getting terrible! Sure
ly something must be done!
(Dear readers: I trust that I shall be forgiven for
falling back upon my imagination to bridge the gaps
between the facts, or where the facts don’t fit in so
well. I think I’d make an ideal jurist for that.)
Now there is another bad thing about these hold-ups
—the blooming thugs never hold up the right people.
They invariably pounce upon some poor soul for the
purpose of taking his change, his watch, or some other
trinket. Some have gone so far as to rob a fellow of
his shoes but leave the socks—not a bad idea, even
thieves know where to stop at times. One desperate
thug went to the point of taking a fellow’s overcoat,
suit, shirt, and tie, but upon reaching for the BVD’s
the victim suddenly took courage and fought his way
to freedom. Good! I suppose the thief was “getting
next to him.” But why is it that a thief never tries
his hand on some desirable type of theft? To make
myself clear, let us suppose a thief would hold-up Miss
Bradshaw and grab her notes, or stop Dr. Volz and
take all the whistles and nuisances off his Ford car.
That would be constructive theft because many students
would be benefited. I dare say, from what I have been
able to learn, the woman who would rob Miss Brad
shaw of her notes would be looked upon, not as a
thief, but as a Joan of Arc. The man who would rob
Dr. Volz of all his peace-disturbing paraphernalia
would be looked upon, not as a menace to society but as
Beowulf, a hero who had rid us of a
constant terror. Instead of getting
heavy fines or sentences, they would
be retired on pensions. Judging from
some of the compliments, I am of
the opinion that the person who
would kidnap the author of this page
would come in for a big share of
praise. Indeed, there are two sides
to everything—even theft.
Before I close I might take this op
portunity to relieve a few weary souls
by saying that the history of this
column will come to a close in the
next and final issue of The Maroon Tiger. In it will
appear a complete story that will be different from the
works of practically all writers—something they should
be proud of. It has created its own name—not a play,
or story, of the orthodox sort, but rather—and I dare
say all professors of English will agree—a monstrosity.
So with that in mind I trust that the readers will save
their over-ripe and over-due eggs for the last act.
I
- by -
R. Bailey
Dr. Mordecai W. Johnson, President of Howard Uni
versity, will be presented by the National Student Feder
ation over a nation-wide network of the Columbia Broad
casting System, Monday, April 24th, at 2:00 P. M.,
(EST).
Dr. Johnson’s subject will be, “The Place of the Ne
gro College in America.”
The Atlanta University Summer School which opens
June 10th, will have six affiliated colleges—Morehouse
College, Spelman College, Atlanta School of Social
Work, Morris Brown College, Clark University, and
Gammon Theological Seminary, it has just been an
nounced by Dr. John Hope, President of the University.
This pooling of the resources of all the Negro insti
tutions of higher learning in Atlanta will make possible
opportunities for summer study unparallelled in this sec
tion of the country.
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