Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, November 1, 1890 by Various
page 4 of 41 (09%)
page 4 of 41 (09%)
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otherwise, they would be useless as seats on which the budding oarsman
may improve the length of his swing in the privacy of his own rooms. These rooms are all furnished on the same pattern. A table, a pedestal desk for writing, half-a-dozen ordinary chairs, a basket arm-chair, perhaps a sofa, some photographs of school-groups, family photographs in frames, a cup or two, won at the school athletic sports, a football cap, and a few prints of popular pictures, complete the furniture and decorations of the average College rooms. Of course there are, even amongst undergraduates, wealthy æsthetes, who furnish their rooms extravagantly--but the Average Undergraduate is not one of them. On the fifth of November the freshman sallies forth only to find, with a sense of bitter disappointment, that the rows between Town and Gown are things of the past. He will have discovered ere this that undergraduate etiquette has ordained that while he wears a cap and gown he must forswear gloves, and leave his umbrella at home, even though the rain should pour down in torrents. All these ordinances he observes strictly, though he can neither be "hauled" nor "gated" for setting them at defiance. Towards the end of his first term he begins to realise more accurately the joys and privileges of University life, he has formed his set, and more or less found his level, he has become a connoisseur of cheap wine, he has with pain and labour learned to smoke, he has certainly exceeded his allowance, and he returns to his home with the firm conviction that he knows a great deal of life. He will terrify his mother with tales of proctorial misadventures, and will excite the suspicions of his father by the new brilliance of his attire. Indeed it is a curious fact that whatever the special pursuit of the Average Undergraduate may be, and whatever may be the calling and profession of his father, the two are generally engaged in a financial war. This always ends in the triumph of the older man, who |
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