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UVa, the old days
Opinion | Readers critique The Post: There’s more to life than politics
Caution! You are about to enter the All Spin Zone.
By Letters to the Editor
October 18, 2024 at 2:20 p.m. EDT
When a problem comes along, you must whippet
The Oct. 5 Style article “Whipping up a frenzy,” on the increasing recreational use of nitrous oxide, brought to mind the long history of laughing gas on college campuses. On Oct. 23, 1829, University of Virginia student James Lawrence Cabell, who went on to become a U-Va. professor for more than 50 years, wrote to his uncle Joseph Carrington Cabell about the annual Laughing Gas Day at U-Va. “Dr. [John Patten] Emmet prepared some exhillarating gas the other day & it was taken on the lawn; some of those who took it fought, some fell down & one of them, Mr Moseley of Georgia, a law student, stepped forth, made a handsome bow & addressed the jury, in some cause in [which] a mule was concerned; I could not hear him well on account of the noise the students made on hearing him call out ‘Gentlemen of the Jury.’”
This tradition continued at least until 1845. In 1890, U-Va. professor (and former student) Charles S. Venable wrote: “In those old days it was the custom to give ‘laughing gas’ to the students once a year. The Professor stood in a safe position in the window of what is now Professor [George Frederick] Holmes’ lecture room and handed the bags of gas to be distributed outside. He much enjoyed the pranks of the men who thus made fools of themselves.”
In his book “Mr. Jefferson’s University,” Virginius Dabney pointed out that U-Va. discontinued Laughing Gas Day when one student under the influence of the gas engaged in what was termed “improper behavior.”
Robert Bloodgood, Charlottesville
Caution! You are about to enter the All Spin Zone.
By Letters to the Editor
October 18, 2024 at 2:20 p.m. EDT
When a problem comes along, you must whippet
The Oct. 5 Style article “Whipping up a frenzy,” on the increasing recreational use of nitrous oxide, brought to mind the long history of laughing gas on college campuses. On Oct. 23, 1829, University of Virginia student James Lawrence Cabell, who went on to become a U-Va. professor for more than 50 years, wrote to his uncle Joseph Carrington Cabell about the annual Laughing Gas Day at U-Va. “Dr. [John Patten] Emmet prepared some exhillarating gas the other day & it was taken on the lawn; some of those who took it fought, some fell down & one of them, Mr Moseley of Georgia, a law student, stepped forth, made a handsome bow & addressed the jury, in some cause in [which] a mule was concerned; I could not hear him well on account of the noise the students made on hearing him call out ‘Gentlemen of the Jury.’”
This tradition continued at least until 1845. In 1890, U-Va. professor (and former student) Charles S. Venable wrote: “In those old days it was the custom to give ‘laughing gas’ to the students once a year. The Professor stood in a safe position in the window of what is now Professor [George Frederick] Holmes’ lecture room and handed the bags of gas to be distributed outside. He much enjoyed the pranks of the men who thus made fools of themselves.”
In his book “Mr. Jefferson’s University,” Virginius Dabney pointed out that U-Va. discontinued Laughing Gas Day when one student under the influence of the gas engaged in what was termed “improper behavior.”
Robert Bloodgood, Charlottesville