The great rag of 1922

The contest between King's and University College reached a new level of excitement in the rag of December 1922 when King's captured Phineas from his usual residence in Tottenham Court Road.
A week later, when King's ignored an ultimatum demanding his return, hundreds of UC students, transported in furniture vans from Bloomsbury or arriving at Aldwych Underground station, stormed the King's quad.

King's was defended by the College gun, re-equipped with a powerful hose pipe, while stationed with Phineas, the University College mascot, on the College's main steps was a personal bodyguard of engineering students armed with rotten fruit and vegetables from the nearby Covent Garden market.
Having first taken the precaution to switch off the College's water supply at the mains, University College students engaged their rivals resulting in several injuries and the collapse of part of a King's College stone balustrade. Police were called and a truce was enforced.

UC and King's students then marched back to Gower Street in good spirits accompanied by the battered but dignified Phineas. The University College mascot soon disappeared again the following spring.
King's was initially suspected but this time it was students of Caius College in Cambridge who carried out the abduction. As one witness of the apparently orderly removal commented, 'They said they were from Caius (pronounced 'Keys') and the assistant thought they were saying 'King's with a Kensington accent'.