UNIVERSITY LARRIKINISM.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXVI, Issue 7595, 1 August 1893, Page 1

UNIVERSITY LARRIKINISM.

;' Melbourne, July 22. Tee Melbourne University students behaved themselves with extreme vulgarity at the Alexandra '1 heatre the other night, where they went in a body to honour Mr Pat Finn, a member of the Punch staff, who was producing a drama which he had adapted from Mark [Twain's "Prince and Peasant." From the time the curtain vose a display of buffoonery, unequalled even at nniverßity gatherings, was begun, and continued almost without a pause right through the entertainment. -'The otherwise dull intervals," the programme stated, "would <. . be enlivened by univeesity songs and;'-',' choruses," '1 he songs and choruses were, however, few and not particularly enlivening, the bulk of the mob giving themselves up to such entertainment ps dusting those in the dress circle and stalls without paper or stage snow, hurling a large canvas tarpaulin down upou the occupants of the drees circle, lowering thigh bones brought from the medical school in front of the faces of the ladies beneath them, burling paper javelins and pellets at the audience and players, and other misconduct. ; Under the circumstances it was quite impossible to form any conclusion as to the merits of the play, for of the earlier part of the dialogue very little was heard above the interjections and interruptions from the' gallery—the blowing of foghorns, trumpets, ,and every eaMortnring;.instrument, that a ingenuity,;!could devise. At intervals during'the play, showers of beads were thrown oh the stage, and when to those were added heavier missiles which, from the force they struck the stage, made the players; and the ladies espeeially, appre • henßive of injury, it was felt thit larrikluism had got beyond its t ordinary limit. The newspapers warmly reprobated the youths, and (.there were hosts of letters complaining of their conduct. Professor Morris.took it upon himself to lecture his class severely on the subject, refer* ring to,tHe dtsp|s)iy, as a; ( ' disgraceful exhibition with which the town was ring* ing. The-upshot''was that the sity Theatre Night' Committee' wrote'to ' the. papers■•mplffng"-a 'most sincere apology,' and - acknowledging that the criticisms weje just.