162

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

What is this scene which strikes upon his
eye, as he hurries into the street, his surplice
draggling in the mud, to purchase something
(on " tick ") for his breakfast ? A party of
young men riding through the town in hunt-
ing costume, cracking their whips. Others
following behind in dog-carts, their legs
muffled up from the cold in thick railway
rugs. The meet is a long way off to-day.
They are starting betimes to go to cover.

Why should he not go out himself, and
have a day's enjoyment? He has been penned
in and cooped up quite enough of late. He
used to follow the hounds, on his pony, some-
times at home, on the sly. He can get across
country as well as some of them. To-morrow
the meet is quite close. Ah! but then there is
evening chapel; suppose he should not get
back in time for that ? He is now compelled
to attend every one. A lucky thought; he
will get an " grotal," or medical, certificate
of illness. He knows Dr. Lifepill. Dr. Life-
pill will give him one in a moment. He
knocks at the Doctor's door. He has a bad
cold—rheumatism—he must lie up for a day
or two. All right, it shall go in. He is off
to the stable and orders his horse.

I fancied a young man so situated, looking
around him after a while, and finding his ex-
penses increasing on every side, his debts
gathering as they run on. Then there are
fines for everything. Everything is pecuniary.
A fine for being out after dark without his
cap and gown—a fine for coming in after a
certain hour at night—a fine for walking
across the grass-plots of his College—a fine for
every time he misses chapel—a fine for coming
in late to an examination—a fine (I have been
credibly informed, and have never heard it
contradicted) for not taking the Lord's Supper.
Then the charges at the kitchen of his
College are enormous, and he must have his
provisions from thence. He has acquired, be-
sides, luxurious tastes, and feels that he must
gratify them. I can fancy (indeed it does
not require a great stretch of imagination) a
young man, under these circumstances, going
to a money-lender, either at Cambridge or in
London. But imagination followed no further
than the fearful door of the usurer, and what
passed inside formed no part of my picture,
simply because I have never, myself, had the
good luck to be acquainted with a money-
lender, either in his own hospitable mansion,
or in society. Neither do I fancy the ruin
and the misery which follow fast upon an
introduction to the good man. These are not
fancies, but dire realities which we have all
of us witnessed, somewhere or other, in our
time.

There is one more scene that requires our
attention. It is his last Term at College. It
is now so long since he has made a practice
of study, that he must set to work in earnest
in order to gain an ordinary degree—a sad
descent from the high honours that his father
hoped and almost felt sure that he would

take! He applies to Mr. Crammer. Mr
Crammer is a celebrated " coach " for lazy
and stupid men, and has a system of his own
which has met with decided success. He
knows his customers perfectly well; he is
aware that, taken from their pipes and their
beer, they are like fish on dry ground; the
element in which they luxuriate being, indeed,
tobacco-smoke, and such little faculties as
they may still have remaining, oozing away
when submitted to the action of any other
atmosphere. They accordingly all sit round
a table at which Mr. Crammer himself offi-
ciates as chairman. Every one calls for his
favourite drink, and his favourite tobacco. A
"gyp " is in attendance to take the orders.
Each one, in his turn, construes the lesson or
demonstrates the proposition appointed for
the day. No other sound is allowed, save and
except the calls for liquor. No one is allowed
to leave the room, or to discontinue smoking
and drinking till the lesson has, in this way,
gone the round of the whole company assem-
bled. At the conclusion, the young votaries
of learning under difficulties rise astonished
to find how much information they have
acquired and how quickly the time has
passed by.

But even Mr. Crammer is like a physician
called in to a hopeless case, and he is
PLUCKED!

So many great writers have exhausted their
pathos upon this fatal event and its conse-
quences, our book-cases contain so many
afflicting tableaux of frantic duns and despe-
rate shifts, of weeping parents and contrite
sons, of the agonies of unsettled debt weigh-
ing upon the mind, and haunting the midnight
pillow, dwelling side by side with the law-
student in his lonely chambers, standing by
the preacher in his pulpit, getting up like
black Care behind the horseman, that I am
unwilling that the picture which I conjured
up in my own imagination, should suffer by
the contrast, and—like the works of one not an
academician—be stuck away out of sight, as
it were, amidst these great works of art.
Experience will supply a better representa-
tion than any daub of mine.

Let it not be supposed, however, by those
unacquainted with College life, that the
career which I have indicated above, is that
of the majority of young men, or even of
more than a small,—I wish I could add, an
insignificant minority. There are degrees, too,
in these matters; and what would be a lawful
expense in the case of one, would be an
unpardonable act of extravagance in another.
If, however, only half-a-dozen such cases
occurred in a year, it would be time to ask
whether the authorities are doing all that
they can to guard their youthful charges
from the evils and temptations which assail
them. Let us hope that the University Com-
mission will answer this question; and if there
be really any unsoundness in the Collegiate
System, propose an efficient remedy.