UNDERGRADUATE ORGIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 255, 27 October 1937, Page 7

UNDERGRADUATE ORGIES

Behind the Scenes at Oxford SOPHISTICATED GIRL STUDENTS “SPINSTER DONS” BLAMED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) Received Oct. 26, 9.35 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 26. Undergraduate orgies at Oxford and the effect of “spiusterish dons” at the women’s colleges, are described by Mr Keith Briant, last year’s editor of the Isis. Mr Briant asserts that about 20 per cent, of the girl students become unduly sophisticated through their experiences with ;.nen while attending the university. He describes parties of equal numbers of undergraduates and undergraduettes and even wilder roysterings confined to men. Mr Briant considers that the wildness of the undergraduettes is due to “spinster dons” who rarely are fit to be placed in absolute control of young women. The girls are expected to look and dress like pre-war spinsters. -If they are pretty and well-dressed and asked to dances, they are regarded as an undesirable influence and the dances are considered immoral. For this reason the students go to dubious river haunts and undesirable roadhouses. Mr Briant also denounces class snobbery. He says that the Oxford proctors are paid to “snuff out” romances between students and the socalled lower classes. One undergraduate who wished to marry an intelligent girl working in a bakery was threatened with expulsion. Thus Oxford upheld the principle that working girls are as immoral as non-work-ing girls are virtuous. OXONIAN’S REPLY TRUTH ABOUT OXFORD WILL NOT BE WRITTEN Received Oct. 26, 11.55 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 26. ‘{Mr Briant suffers from a preoccupation of undergraduate morals from which most undergraduates are entirely free," declares Mr George Edinger, an Oxonian, in the Daily Sketch. “I know a youngster spent four years at Oxford and he told me that he did not hear sex mentioned. He is just as typical as Mr Briant's drunken immorals. The truth about Oxford will not be written: First of all because it is impossible to generalise; and secondly, because it is uninteresting. Nevertheless, an influx of women dons closer in touch with the world would improve and humanise the women’s colleges.. Oxford wants a greater toleration in dealing with undergraduates who are a normal cross-section of the country.” •