THE CRIME

Those who persevered to the end of this "column' in last week's CRIMSON will perhaps remember that rather sweeping statement in the last sentence; that almost evry important item in the early history of Harvard College, and in a lesser sense today, has arisen out of grave problems of food supply and demand. This was of course a rash and heartless statement, based on a newspaper man's false notion that the world moves on sentiment and sensation. But before the writer pleads guilty of ignoring the "great underlying forces which have molded Harvard's glorious history" he would like to point out that, of Harvard, the Great Rebellion does not mean the War of Independence of 1775-1781, but the Rotten Cabbage War of 1807-1819.

Puritan Pudding

So it is probably worthwhile for the summer school student, prone to behind-the-napkin whispering at the Union on the slowness of service and lack of desert-talent among the cook-force, to ponder on these early battles in the cause of wholesome, 100-percent edible eatables. The first head of the college, the wicked Mr. Eaton mentioned last time, fed his long-suffering students, according to contemporary accounts, "hasty pudding with goat's dung in it, and mackerel served with their guts in them." Before skipping this plainspoken, if indelicate piece of seventeenth-century realism the early prevalence of Hasty pudding in the diet should be noted. For more than 200 years the staple food here, this pudding is now remembered only in the name of the largest and second oldest club (1790). It probably needed no doctoring to make it disagreeable as it was pretty meagre stuff anyway.

But the rising tide of Democracy was not unfelt at Harvard. In the first 100 years of Harvard eating, the student body was divided into tables of about ten or more men, seated according to social rank. When the first Harvard Hall burned in 1764 a larger room was procured in the present Harvard Hall, and the seating plan began to take on its present lack of class-consciousness.

Revolutionary Butter

Under this new plan a radical change in the diet occured. Previously breakfast had consisted of bread and beer, supper, milk instead of beer; and a pound of meat for each man to make a satisfying dinner. The University Comptrollers however, went in strongly for lamb, just as our present stewards have recently done well by the strawberry trade, and the students quickly tired of the new regime. They crowded around the Steward's rooms and set up loud bleatings and baaings until the offending lamb was varied with other meats and vegetables. But the food continued poor in quality, and the "Butter Rebellion' 'was soon under way. Tutors were hissed day and night and indignation meetings were held in the holy precincts of Holden Chapel where it was resolved that "the Butter Stinketh to Heaven," and it was declared unfit even to lbricate cart-wheels.

Napoleonic Cabbage

When the college was moved out to Concord during the seige of Boston, (while minute-men were scraping the lead off Harvard Hall roofing for bullets) the food problem waned. It was not until 1807 that it broke out again in its violent manner. Maggots in the cabbage soup brought about the Cabbage Rebellion, and minor bickering continued until the outbreak of 1819, the "great Rebellion" which combined a hunger strike, and walk-out of 30 students, weird wardances, bonfires, a battle-royal of tableware, and a noted epic "The Rebelliad.'

Riots continued well on into the nineteenth century, usually mere potato or bread fights, but always waged with deep grudge and flaring hate of the authorities. History relates that Prescott, the great historian, was partially blinded by a flying piece of stoney-bread; a food which conveniently supplied both the issue of the war and the ammunition. But the meek reception by the students this year of the news that the University, attempting to run its dining halls on a no-profit basis, had inadvertently made a net haul of $40,000 proves that the old-days are indeed gone forever.