Cuthbert Gleep

Every Princetonian knows in some form or other the story of Joe Gish, a student invented by a group of the Class of 1905 whose creators kept him alive for nearly four years by enrolling for extra courses under his name until five of them accidentally signed chapel cards for him the same day.* In one of his stories Princeton's Author F. Scott Fitzgerald changed Joe Gish into an ape. Last week it was revealed that all this spring a band of prankish seniors at Iowa State College (Ames) had actually persuaded their psychology, botany and chemistry instructors of the existence of an A-rating student named Cuthbert Gleep.

*In 1908 Princeton had a ghost student named Henry Thompson, invented by a member of the mathematics department who playfully filled out papers in his name while supervising entrance examinations in Chicago. Henry Thompson was admitted but never appeared to register. Most ingenious recreation of Joe Gish was Ephraim di Kahble, conceived in 1935 by a group from the then freshman class. The freshmen rented and furnished a boarding house room for Ephraim di Kahble, inserted an advertisement under his name in the Daily Princetonian offering a free ride in a Lincoln phaeton to the Yale game in New Haven which drew 50 replies, were finally exposed when Ephraim di Kahble advertised in the New York Times for an orange-&-black guinea pig.

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