A Sable Son of Science Comes to Grief
Dublin Core
Title
A Sable Son of Science Comes to Grief
Creator
[Unknown]
Source
http://addison.vt.edu/record=b1775388~S1
Publisher
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Date
May 1877
Contributor
Peter Royal, Abbey Williams
Rights
Permission to publish images from The Gray Jacket must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
Format
Text
Language
English
Type
article
Identifier
LD5655.V8 L4, ser.1, v.2, no.7 (May 1877), p.5
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
We clip the following item from the Richmond Whig as a Warning to "Vice-President," Andrew Oliver, of the V. A. M. C.: "Old Billy Parish (colored), who has been janitor at the Medical College for thirty years, and superintendent of the morgue for the same period, has come to grief. He is a philosopher, and last Saturday he took it into his head to inspect the french air-pump which stays in the apparatus-room. He got an axe and smashed the machine all to pieces, and then putting it in a bag went to a junk store on Seventeenth street to dispose of it. But the junk dealer suspected him and refused to buy it. So he started to some other place, when officer Clinely nabbed him as he was passing along Marshall street.
The air pump is valued at $75, and was used by Dr. Taylor in his work at the college. Old Billy was a member of the church, also an assistant in Dr. Taylor's great moral show. He was locked up in the station-house, where he will remain until taken before the Police Judge to-day."
Cash must be scarce at the Medical College—that one of its worthy "Faculty" should be reduced to such an extremity. But why did they not exhibit such charity as is characteristic of our faculty upon such occasions, by charging their contingent fee with double the price of the old thing and buying a first class new machine to take its place? Oh that some scientific investigator would visit Gen. Lane's laboratory and smash our air-pump, so given to smashing experiments, that the boys might have the opportunity of presenting to the laboratory a new machine less given to such tricks. We see only one objection to the above suggestion and that is, the old air-pump would not burn worth a cent, and we have here no junk dealers.
Improvement medals being now the order of the day, debates and declamations are becoming much more interesting than heretofore. Why will not our members remember that there is at all times the greatest reward in store for him who continues to improve both in oratory and in composition? Let them once realize this fact and there will be no lack of matter for the Gray Jacket, or interest in the societies.
The air pump is valued at $75, and was used by Dr. Taylor in his work at the college. Old Billy was a member of the church, also an assistant in Dr. Taylor's great moral show. He was locked up in the station-house, where he will remain until taken before the Police Judge to-day."
Cash must be scarce at the Medical College—that one of its worthy "Faculty" should be reduced to such an extremity. But why did they not exhibit such charity as is characteristic of our faculty upon such occasions, by charging their contingent fee with double the price of the old thing and buying a first class new machine to take its place? Oh that some scientific investigator would visit Gen. Lane's laboratory and smash our air-pump, so given to smashing experiments, that the boys might have the opportunity of presenting to the laboratory a new machine less given to such tricks. We see only one objection to the above suggestion and that is, the old air-pump would not burn worth a cent, and we have here no junk dealers.
Improvement medals being now the order of the day, debates and declamations are becoming much more interesting than heretofore. Why will not our members remember that there is at all times the greatest reward in store for him who continues to improve both in oratory and in composition? Let them once realize this fact and there will be no lack of matter for the Gray Jacket, or interest in the societies.