prevent them from running into debt; and finally, by providing a
place where drinkables of not very stimulating qualities were
sold, to remove the temptation of going abroad after spirituous
liquors. Accordingly, laws were passed limiting the sum for which
the Butler might give credit to a student, authorizing the
President to inspect his books, and forbidding him to sell
anything except permitted articles for ready money. But the whole
system, as viewed from our position as critics of the past, must
be pronounced a bad one. It rather tempted the student to
self-indulgence by setting up a place for the sale of things to
eat and drink within the College walls, than restrained him by
bringing his habits under inspection. There was nothing to prevent
his going abroad in quest of stronger drinks than could be bought
at the buttery, when once those which were there sold ceased to
allay his thirst. And a monopoly, such as the Butler enjoyed of
certain articles, did not tend to lower their price, or to remove
suspicion that they were sold at a higher rate than free
competition would assign to them."--pp. 44, 45.

"When," says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, "the 'punishment
obscene,' as Cowper, the poet, very properly terms it, of
_flagellation_, was enforced at our University, it appears that
the Buttery was the scene of action. In The Poor Scholar, a
comedy, written by Robert Nevile, Fellow of King's College in
Cambridge, London, 1662, one of the students having lost his gown,
which is picked up by the President of the College, the tutor
says, 'If we knew the owner, we 'd take him down to th' Butterie,
and give him due correction.' To which the student, (_aside_,)
'Under correction, Sir; if you're for the Butteries with me, I'll
lie as close as Diogenes in dolio. I'll creep in at the bunghole,