See SENIOR WRANGLER.

WRANGLERSHIP.  The office of a Wrangler.

He may be considered pretty safe for the highest Wranglership out of Trinity.—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 103.

WRESTLING-MATCH.  At Harvard College, it was formerly the custom, on the first Monday of the term succeeding the Commencement vacation, for the Sophomores to challenge the Freshmen who had just entered College to a wrestling-match.  A writer in the New England Magazine, 1832, in an article entitled “Harvard College Forty Years Ago,” remarks as follows on this subject:  “Another custom, not enjoined by the government, had been in vogue from time immemorial.  That was for the Sophomores to challenge the Freshmen to a wrestling-match.  If the Sophomores were thrown, the Juniors gave a similar challenge.  If these were conquered, the Seniors entered the lists, or treated the victors to as much wine, punch, &c. as they chose to drink.  In my class, there were few who had either taste, skill, or bodily strength for this exercise, so that we were easily laid on our backs, and the Sophomores were acknowledged our superiors, in so far as ‘brute force’ was concerned.  Being disgusted with these customs, we held a class-meeting, early in our first quarter, and voted unanimously that we should never send a Freshman on an errand; and, with but one dissenting voice, that we would not challenge the next class that should enter to wrestle.  When the latter vote was passed, our moderator, pointing at the dissenting individual with the finger of scorn, declared it to be a vote, nemine contradicente.  We commenced Sophomores, another Freshman Class entered, the Juniors challenged them, and were thrown.  The Seniors invited them to a treat, and these barbarous customs were soon after abolished.”—­Vol.  III. p. 239.

The Freshman Class above referred to, as superior to the Junior, was the one which graduated in 1796, of which Mr. Thomas Mason, surnamed “the College Lion,” was a member,—­“said,” remarks Mr. Buckingham, “to be the greatest wrestler that was ever in College.  He was settled as a clergyman at Northfield, Mass., resigned his office some years after, and several times represented that town in the Legislature of Massachusetts.”  Charles Prentiss, the wit of the Class of ’95, in a will written on his departure from college life, addresses Mason as follows:—­

 “Item.  Tom M——­n, COLLEGE LION,
  Who’d ne’er spend cash enough to buy one,
  The BOANERGES of a pun,
  A man of science and of fun,
  That quite uncommon witty elf,
  Who darts his bolts and shoots himself,
  Who oft has bled beneath my jokes,
  I give my old tobacco-box.”
    Buckingham’s Reminiscences, Vol.  II. p. 271.