1934

A visiting Scotsman's story that the Loch Ness "monster" is just another hoax by Glasgow University students recalls some memorable hoaxes said to have been perpetrated by undergrads.
     Perhaps the most famous of all was the issue of fake invitations to an important conversazione in the Great
Hall, Sydney, about nine years ago. Crowds of persons of all classes, who had received the invitation cards, besieged the Great Hall for admission. So skilfully were the printed tickets faked that only by careful examination of the crest embossed on the genuine tickets were the officially invited guests distinguished.
     On another occasion passers by were horor-stricken to see a student, on the top of one of the University towers apparently in death grips with another man. On the brink of a 100 ft. drop they wrestled fiercely. Women are said to have fainted as with a furious effort the studeut hurled from the height his antagonist—a dummy!
     In broad daylight, a few years ago, a party of students drove up King Street and removed the large brass plate on the front of the Supreme Court. They sent it to the then Chief Justice as a birthday present.
     Resenting certain restrictions on the mingling or men and women students at a dance at the Women's College, a Sydney University student impersonated an officer of the Electricity Department, convinced the college authorities that he had to test the lighting system immediately and succeeded in bringing about total darkness for almost half in hour during the dance.
    Hardly a monster of Loch Ness proportions, but a very strange creature nevertheless, was that described by Melbourne University students as having been seen by them. It had horns, like a snail, they said, and when squeezed, gave out a white fluid. The balloon of scientific curiosity had been well inflated before it was pricked by the revelation that the creature described was a cow.