A Collection of College Words and Customs by Benjamin Homer Hall
page 147 of 755 (19%)
page 147 of 755 (19%)
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"Much Money sunk,
Much Liquor drunk." His only note for the year 1765 was this:-- "Many Crapulæ to Day Give the Head-ach to the Gay." Commencement Day was generally considered a holiday throughout the Province, and in the metropolis the shops were usually closed, and little or no business was done. About ten days before this period, a body of Indians from Natick--men, women, and pappooses--commonly made their appearance at Cambridge, and took up their station around the Episcopal Church, in the cellar of which they were accustomed to sleep, if the weather was unpleasant. The women sold baskets and moccasons; the boys gained money by shooting at it, while the men wandered about and spent the little that was earned by their squaws in rum and tobacco. Then there would come along a body of itinerant negro fiddlers, whose scraping never intermitted during the time of their abode. The Common, on Commencement week, was covered with booths, erected in lines, like streets, intended to accommodate the populace from Boston and the vicinity with the amusements of a fair. In these were carried on all sorts of dissipation. Here was a knot of gamblers, gathered around a wheel of fortune, or watching the whirl of the ball on a roulette-table. Further along, the jolly hucksters displayed their tempting wares in the shape of cooling beverages and palate-tickling confections. There was dancing on this side, auction-selling on the other; here a pantomimic show, |
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