the academic race, the large common was decked with tents filled
with various refreshments for the hungry and thirsty multitudes,
and the intermediate spaces crowded with men, women, and boys,
white and black, many of them gambling, drinking, swearing,
dancing, and fighting from morning to midnight. Here and there the
scene was varied by some show of curiosities, or of monkeys or
less common wild animals, and the gambols of mountebanks, who by
their ridiculous tricks drew a greater crowd than the abandoned
group at the gaming-tables, or than the fooleries, distortions,
and mad pranks of the inebriates. If my revered uncle[07] took a
glimpse at these scenes, he did not see there any of our red
brethren, as Mr. Jefferson kindly called them, who formed a
considerable part of the gathering at the time of his graduation,
forty-two years before; but he must have seen exhibitions of
depravity which would disgust the most untutored savage. Near the
close of the last century these outrages began to disappear, and
lessened from year to year, until by public opinion, enforced by
an efficient police, they were many years ago wholly suppressed,
and the vicinity of the College halls has become, as it should be,
a classic ground."--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. I. pp.
251, 252.

It is to such scenes as these that Mr. William Biglow refers, in
his poem recited before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, in their
dining-hall, August 29th, 1811.

"All hail, Commencement! when all classes free
Throng learning's fount, from interest, taste, or glee;
When sutlers plain in tents, like Jacob, dwell,
Their goods distribute, and their purses swell;