New Trail is 100! To celebrate our centenary year, we went back into the archives and dug up 100 weird and wonderful moments from our past issues. On our hunt, we got glimpses of life on campus through the decades, came across grads and researchers trying to make a difference in the world and found a century-long collection of snippets and stories like the one that you're about to read. This story, detailing an epic campus caper, was originally published in The Trail in 1926.
It was after midnight. A shot rang out across the cabbage field behind Athabasca Hall: then another shot, and groans and cries for help. Little groups of half-dressed students came from the buildings and made their way to the scene. The snow showed unmistakable marks of a struggle. A torn purse spoke of robbery. Drops of blood marked the tracks of the wounded man, and the murderer’s footsteps could be seen clearly in the moonlight leading in the opposite direction.
The detectives noted all this (four of them had come on the scene). This was a desperate case, and so they called out all the police who were on duty. They made a record run. Some of the students were inclined to look on the whole affair as a practical joke. One of them even picked up a handful of red-stained snow and said, “This looks pretty thin for blood, if you ask me.” But a detective pooh-poohed the fancy: “It’s always thin when it first comes out.” Policemen and detectives soon trooped off on the trail of the murdered man.
In the meanwhile, the murderer and his victim were safe in the dormitory. They saw their pursuers trailing off into the bush and over the playing fields. Then they made their mistake: they gave away the joke. It is said that the police were angry. Somebody has described the event as a hundred per cent “horse”— on the students, on the police force, and on the jokers themselves. For, it must be known, the two jokers were arraigned before the police magistrate and before the Students’ Court. Fortunately, the police magistrate recognized a good joke, and dismissed the prisoners with a warning. The Students’ Court dismissed them with stern and solemn reprimands.
Naturally, most of the university was highly amused at the exploit, and pleased at the display of originality, which some claimed the students did not possess. Many stories of the eventful night are going the rounds. Even some of the details we have narrated may be legendary, although many say they are true. (March 1926)
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