"Stomp" in 1878

SOME NORMAL STUDENTS DROP INTO MUSIC

--On Saturday morning last, as the City Marshal was taking his walks abroad, he was startled by loud noises proceeding from that part of the city known as "Normaldom."

Repairing thither he found a band of twenty or more youths engaged, so they said, in serenading. The music not being music when it reached the ears of the Marshal, he requested them to stop, a thing which they promptly did. Before they had gone far, however, the fences were again made to act as drums, and semi-musical notes again rent the air.

Following up this chorus, the Marshal again made a request for quiet, remarking, by way of an aside, that he would be sorry to add to the list of boarders at the City Hall Hotel. Whereupon, one young gentleman remarked that during a long life he had never put up at any but first class hotels, and that he did not mean to begin now. The noise, however, was stopped, and soon that part of the city was locked in sleep.

The Marshal, thinking that the disturbance, if let alone, would be but the prelude to others of a graver character, and, after being requested so to do by the inhabitants of the Normal quarter, entered a complaint against two of the leaders of the chorus, and, on Monday morning called for them at the Principal's office. After a few characteristic words in support of the law, the Principal turned his students over to justice.

At first the choristers pleaded not guilty, but finally changed their plan and were, by the advice of the City Attorney, let off with costs amounting to about $8.00. This sum the chorus made up, and the boys declared that the singing was cheap enough for them.

--Ypsilanti Commercial, December 14, 1878