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Harvard has seen many parades in her long life. The Marti-Mercurian Band, which was organized toward the end of the last century, and its successors, the Harvard Washington Corps, which will be referred to later, the old Engine Company and the various Navy Clubs, which existed early in this century, all had their share in exhibitions and excursions. But the greatest parade of all was that held to celebrate the 240th anniversary of the College. In connection with the student parade, on Wednesday next, an account of this last parade may be interesting. It was held Monday evening, November 8, 1886, led by mounted marshals from the Senior class.
First came the Seniors, dressed in long red gowns with black Oxford caps. They had with them on a dray, a model of the Harvard statue, supported by burlesque personations of a butcher, a cooper, and a grocer, in allusion to the father and two step-fathers of John Harvard, who left their little fortunes to his mother, whence the property passed to him to endow finally the infant college. The group was labelled "Johnnie Harvard's Pas." The Seniors carried also a transparency worded as follows: "We are the oldest living graduates."
The Seniors were followed by an old printing press in allusion to the printing of Eliot's Indian Bible at the college press. Two printers devils, in red tights with long tails, distributed little hand-bills bearing on one side a facsimile of the title-page of the Indian Bible, and on the reverse two stanzas, one of which read:
"Ye Indians who receive the word,
Come, read it one and all;
You'll find it in ye Library
In Master Gore, his Hall."
Then came the representatives of the different college journals. Those of the CRIMSON were dressed in their class costumes with a quill over the ear and scissors at the belt. A transparency borne in their midst represented Appleton Chapel, at which attendance was then compulsory, with the legend: "College Cooler; Usual Term, 15 Minutes." The men from the Lampoon were dressed as jesters with caps, bells and bawbles.
There marched before the "Washington Corps," a body of students dressed in blue swallow-tailed coats and white small-clothes. This corps was organized at the close of 1811 with arms loaned by the state, and lasted till 1834, when it was disbanded by the College.
The Junior Class followed, wearing red coats with blue facings, and buff kneebreeches. They escorted a group of College benefactors, Sam Adams, Gore, Hollis, Stoughton, the solitary Indian graduate, Caleb Chershahteaumuck and others.
Then marched the Sophomores, dressed as the "dudes of 1833," with grey cutaways, plug hats, white vests, buff trousers and white gaiters. They were preceded by a band and carried various transparencies.
Between them and the Freshmen came the Commencement Day Police with clubs, plug hats and false beards, and an old-fashioned stage-coach. This was covered with the most tastefully costumed men in the parade and labelled: "1750: Cambridge, Roxbury and Boston; fare 2 shillings; 18th Century Elevator."
The Freshmen wore the blue regimentals of the Civil War and carried the famous transparency, "Harvard has been waiting for '90 250 years. Amid the Freshmen ranks came the Navy Club, a club which existed during the first of this century. The thirty laziest men in the class belonged and the most supremely lazy was high admiral. In the parade this favored individual was borne on a red divan on a dray.
After another band came the feature of the procession-a huge model of the Mott Haven cup, ten feet high and nine broad.
Last of all came the Law School, preceded by a drum corps in policemen's uniforms "drumming for clients." The men wore crimson gowns with ermine and wigs.
After marching two hours, the procession reached Jarvis Field where there followed a grand display of fireworks.
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