An American at Oxford

. It is seldom, however, as hazing has come to be with us, a wanton outbreak. It is a deliberate expression of public opinion, and is

d come up with a "reputter," or reputation, as a football player, and had insisted on trying first off for the 'varsity fifteen. He had promptly been given the hoof for being slow and lazy, and when he condescended to try for the college fifteen, his services were speedily dispensed with for the same reason. As he still carried his

their sting was more or less blunted. The man had been given over to his books to the neglect of his personal appearance. It was charged that in pretending to know his subjunctives he was ministering to the vanity of the dean, who had written a Latin grammar, and that by displaying familiarity with Hegel he was boot-licking the master, who was a recently imported Scotch philosopher. Then the vital que

ity shooting team and golf team. He was a Scotchman by birth and by profession

and his unwieldy brogues, wantonly and with malice destroyed, mutilated, and otherwise injured the putting gree

, and impediments, formed unnecessary roads, farm roads, bridle paths, and other roads, on the putting greens, tees, and golf course generally, aforesaid; excavated sundry

unwieldy brogues aforesaid, caused landslips, thus demolishing all natural hills, bunker

do request, petition, and ot

eneral mode of progression; to buy, purchase, or otherwise acquire boots, shoes, and all other understandings of reasonable size,

is the 17th day

ly not. One midnight a party of roisterers hauled the unpopular Gaylor out of his study, pulled off his bags, and dragged him by the heels a lap or two about the quad. This form of discipline has since

staircase. "What am I to do?" cried the don. "Mr. Muff, sir," suggested the scout, "when 'e's screwed up, sir, 'e sends for the blacksmith." At Christ Church, "The House," as it is familiarly called, much more direct and personal methods have been employed. Not many years ago a censor (whose office is that of the dean at other colleges) stirred up unusual ill-will among hi

ilence that, for all they knew, the ghost of Wolsey might have been stalking in his cherished quadrangle, the glory of building which the Eighth Henry so unfeelingly appropriated. As morning dawned, the common-room gossips will tell you, the dons crawled furtively out of bed, and shot their bolts to find whether they had need of the blacksmith. Not a screw had been driven. The morning showed why. On the stately walls of Tom Quad was painted "Damn the Dons!" and again in capital letters, "Damn the Dons!" and a third time, in larger capitals, "Damn the Dons!" There were other inscriptions, less fit to relate; and stretching along one whole

sso dwindles into insignificance, and the painting of 'varsity stockings on John Harvard, which so scandalized the u

rally to the grindstone. In the schools, to be sure, the Sixth Form take their duties with great sobriety of conscience-which is not altogether the case in college; but the difference of spirit is perhaps justifiable. For a properly authorized committee of big schoolboys to chastise a youngster who has transgressed is not unnatural, and the system that provides for it has proved successful for five centuries; but for men to adopt the same attitude towards a fellow only a year or two their junior would be preposterous. Horseplay is a necessary part of the game. The end in both is the same: it is to bring each individual under the influence of the traditions and standards of the institution

rict honesty and justice of dealing. So far as I could learn, the Christ Church dons who were so severely dealt with were both unjust and insincere, a

ism if you wish-it was certainly a very stupid proceeding; and to celebrate a really notable athletic victory by mutilating the pedestal of the statue of John Harvard was not only stupid, but unworthy of a true sportsman. How much better to make an end with painting

broken windows, he would say cheerily to his fidus Achates, "Ah, Hardie, the mind of the college is still vigorous; it has been expressing itself." The best possible justification of the cloistral restrictions of English college life is the facility with which the mind of

wed out that he would hextricate me for 'arf a crown, sir. I have seldom been in a less gratifying position; and when I had clambered back into college, I ruefully recalled the explanation my tutor had given me of the iron spikes and bottle shards,-an explanation that at the time had shaken my sides with laughter at British absurdity. My tutor had said that if the fellows were allowed to rag each other in the open streets and smash the townspeople's window

any loosening of the restrictions. To give them the liberty of London at night or even of Oxford, they argued, would tend to break up the college as a social organization and thus t

vitable-and such are to be found in all communities-have recourse to London. But as their expeditions take place in daylight and cold blood, and are, except at great risk, cut short when the last evening train leaves Paddington shortly after dinner, it is not possible to carry them off with that dazzling air of the man of the world that in America lures so many silly freshmen into dissipations for which they have no natural inclination. This little liberty is apparently of great value. The cloistral vice, which seems inevitable in the English public schools, is robbed of any shadow of palliation. A fellow who continues it is thought puerile, if nothing worse. When it exists, it is more likely to be the result of the intimate study of the ancient classics, and is then even more looked down upon by the robust Briton as effeminate or decadent. The subject, usually difficult or impossible to investigate, happened to be on the surface at the time of my residence because of the sensational trial of an Oxford graduate i