Charlestown (SC) Mercury, "A Practical Joke," April 13, 1849

A Practical Joke - One of the richest jokes of the season was practised on the Rev. Dr. Peck, the new President of Dickinson College - one which will vie with the most recherche of Smollett, and might well sustain itself amongst the records of Trinity, by Charles O'Malley. The Doctor, it appears, was making his first visit to the Baltimore Conference, held this year in Staunton, Va. Meantime, some reprobate student sat himself down, and wrote a letter to the Physician of the Hospital at the place, giving him a description of some individual who had left Carlisle, the seat of Dickinson College, in a state of mental derangement; and stating, furthermore, that it was more than probable that the said individual had betaken himself to Staunton, inasmuch as it was a sort of monomania with him to regard himself as the President of the Institution, and accordingly be imagined that he had to make the customary report to the Conference, on the state of the College. This letter was signed in the name of President Peck himself, and requested the manager to take charge of the lunatic. It is needles to add, that the description of the insane person coincided precisely with the appearance of the Rev. Doctor himself - and that it required the reiterated identifications of the ministers of the Conference around, to save him from confinement! - Richmond Examiner.