Peck's Bad Boys

The famed prankish chronicle Peck's Bad Boy was written in 1883 by George W. Peck, in whose Milwaukee Sun the chronicles first appeared. In apology. Humorist Peck said of his Boy: "But he shuffles through life until the time comes for him to make his mark in the world. . . . Then those who said he would bring up in State Prison, remember that he always was a mighty smart lad. ..."

Last week came news of the smart lads of another Peck who really had landed in a State prison. They were the shamefaced inmates of Connecticut School for Boys (reformatory at Meriden) where James S. Peck is farm superintendent. Bad boys under 16 are confined under the thin pretense of a boarding school regime. Connecticut Schoolboys are not discharged but "graduated."

Six weeks ago one young culprit, Austin Mills, stabbed a fellow prisoner. Raymond Brown, with a pitchfork. Brown died. His mother sued the State for $50.000. Immediately three investigation committees were set to work. Chief witness for the complainants was Farm Superintendent Peck. Said he:

"This cruelty to the boys has almost driven me crazy. They come to me with horrible tales. They tell me of being flogged for minor offenses. They show me their black eyes and tell me that they have been beaten with clubs or fists.

"They confide in me the misery of solitary confinement sentences, when they are fed on nothing but bread and water. I have complained repeatedly to Superintendent Boyd. I do not believe he sanctions these inhuman acts. But nothing is done. I expect to lose my job but it will be worth while if the school can be cleaned up. . . ."

Last week Peck's expectation came true. For defending his bad boys, he was dismissed.

Death of a King

During the years 1914 to 1922, some 900 boys attended The Hill School at Pottstown, Pa. There, as their headmaster, they knew an erect, square-shouldered young man with crisp, rufous hair, square chin, and wide blue eyes that combined the attentiveness of a scholar, the vigilance of a martinet, the red-veined nervousness of a stallion. Boys, now men. who remember those eyes and the wide mouth that always trembled when it was trying to be most deliberate, know that Dwight Raymond Meigs was a combination of strong forces. "The King." the boys called him, some in fear, some in admiration, few with warmth.

Dr. John Meigs, his patriarchal Presbyterian father, had raised The Hill to a high place among U. S. preparatory-schools. His mother, "Mrs. John," remained at the school, a matriarchal and religious influence, an embodiment of Hill tradition, while the young King carried on after his father's death. He had been to Yale and Oxford. He had firm ideas about efficiency of body and mind. He administered the school as a business concern, left teaching to the teachers, led prayers like a chairman-of-the-board. An able tennis player, he coached the tennis team, then mastered golf mechanically and coached that too. Those were his two closest contacts with the boys except when they appeared before him as culprits or petitioners or to receive their diplomas. Kinglike, he dressed in the height of fashion, held himself apart, aloof.

Changes came over The Hill after its young King left. A certain tension in its atmosphere was relaxed. The place was pervaded first by the mellowness of its acting headmaster, ancient Greek Professor Alfred Grosvenor Rolfe; then by the robustious inefficiency of Dr. F. Boyd Edwards, who was called from a New Jersey pulpit to be headmaster; finally by the brisk but sympathetic force of James Isaac Wendell, formerly executive secretary to Dwight Meigs, who succeeded Dr. Edwards two years ago. (TIME, Sept. 24. 1928.)

After he left the school, Dwight Meigs changed too. "Family interests" were given as the reason for his departure. His father had left extensive timber lands in Tennessee which needed administering. But old Hill boys noted that just one year after leaving the school, Dwight Meigs was divorced.* Stories circulated which bore out the dormitory gossip of 1914 to 1922 at The Hill, that Dwight Meigs enjoyed, with characteristic thoroughness, other things than discipline and leading prayers. In the autumn of 1923 he married Ruth Payne of Harrisburg. Pa., and went to live in Knoxville, Tenn.

One night last week Dwight Meigs of Knoxville telephoned his four best friends, asking them to come straight to his apartment and help him "put over a big deal." Knoxville had just had a bad fire. Perhaps, thought his friends, Meigs had thought up a way to recoup from Knoxville's ashes some of the losses, in timber and realty, which had practically ruined him in recent years. Or perhaps-- for he had come to be regarded as Knoxville's most cultured and cynical citizen, a leader in the town's "fastest" set-perhaps he had some particularly diverting joke to play.

The friends found Dwight Meigs, once a King, with a revolver in his hand, a bullet hole in his head. They sent the body to aged "Mrs. John" at Pottstown for burial. Old Hill boys were genuinely sorry.

"SoCalled Banquet"

Rutgers University's sophomores last week held their annual banquet. Taken aback were they when Dr. Fraser Metzger, Dean of Men, notified them before receiving an invitation that, "having ceased to go to banquets which were mere drunks," he must decline for Dear Old Rutgers. Further remarks:

"I'm through going to so-called banquets where the kick of modern hooch and cheap entertainment are substituted for the pleasures of breaking bread with a group of your classmates."

*Mrs. Ruth Averell Meigs now lives in Manhattan, conducts a successful decorating business on Park Ave. Her daughter Marcia was a debutante this winter.

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