HAPPY COLUMBIA SOPHOMORES.

Among the most curious of the fantastic celebrations, burials and burnings which college undergraduates are wont to disport themselves with after the completion of some dreaded course in the curriculum, none is more worthy of notice than the "Burial of Legendre" which the Columbia sophomores perform annually with great pomp and circumstance. Not one of the least peculiar circumstances connected with the burial is the fact that it takes place in the great city of New York amid the bustle and hurry of Metropolitan life, while the people look on and wonder at the strange doings of the jolly and happy sophomores, who seem not at all abashed by the publicity of the event. At about ten o'clock one evening last week the Columbia sophomores, assisted by the juniors, some three hundred in all, assembled in front of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Each man was arrayed in a uniform costume of a long white gown and white "plug" hat and carried a torch. As soon as the collegians had all gathered at the hotel a procession was formed, which marched up Fifth avenue and thence to the grounds of the college. In their midst was carried an effigy representing Legendre, the mathematician. Every now and then when the spirit moved them they groaned dismally until their destination was reached. Then they gathered round the funeral pyre and listened to a gag poem which was recited by the Harnspex of the class. He was followed by the Carnifex who offered up the burnt sacrifice and then the figure of Legendre itself. As the last semblance of the hated mathematical Gend was lost and the effigy was only a mass of ashes, the whole throng of happy sops broke forth into joyous shouts and then separated to go home.