OXFORD ROWDYISM.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue VII, 18 August 1894, Page 150

OXFORD ROWDYISM.

BY AN OLD OXONIAN.

The undergraduate of Oxford is not a political conspirator, like the undergraduate of Moscow, nor does he understand the uses of the monome, like the undergraduates of Paris. His methods of painting the town red are of a much more light and airy character. Yet the stories that have lately got into the papers about the breaking of windows in the

Christ Church quadrangles, and the consequent rustication of certain members of the Ballingdon Club, revive many memories of revolutions, a little graver than the proverbial schoolboy’s barring jout. Let me try to recall a few of them at random.

Comparatively recently there was a great row at New College, the exact rights of which few people ever knew.

THE NEW WOMEN AND THE NEW JOURNALISM were jointly responsible for it. The New Women had taken to attending the classes of a University Professor who was lecturing on Juvenal —a poet whose writings are sometimes as unpleasantly realistic as the contents of a French anatomical museum. -The New Journalism, represented on this occasion by an amateur organ of undergraduate opinion, edited by the Hon. Lionel Bathurst—commented on the circumstance, and hinted that the improper passages which occur so freely in the poems of the Roman satirist were not so unpalatable to the New Women as they onght to be. In the interests of discipline the dons took the matter up, and sent Mr Bathurst down. New College, as a whole, formed the opinion that Mr Bathurst was hardly treated. They laid their views before the dons, and as their views did not find acceptance, they created no inconsiderable disturbance. OF COURSE THERE WERE BONFIRES—THERE AKE ALWAYS

BONFIRES. But the greatest demonstration took place in hall, when the college was assembled for dinner. For, when the don at the head of the high table rose to ask the usual blessing on the meal, his Latin grace was drowned by the chorus of the well known English song, ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow.’

A more notable row was that which took place at Wadham, towards the end of the seventies, and resulted in making that college a wilderness for many years. It sprang, like so many great events, from a very trifling cause. The dons had put their beads together and composed a book of rules for the conduct of those in statu pupillaria. The undergraduates considered that this

SAVOURED OF GRANDMOTHERLY LEGISLATION. Some wits among them compiled a bogus book of rules, burlesquing the official document, and posted copies of it to the vice chancellor, the proctors, and the heads of all colleges and halls. The dons replied by forbidding the Wadham men to give their usual concert at the end of the summer term. Then the fun began. A great bonfire was lighted on the grass, where undergraduates are not even allowed to walk. A great quantity of wine was drunk, and the proposal was made to * rag * the rooms of a certain * unbelieving Dick ’ —so called on account of bis reputed theological opinions—who was believed to be at the bottom of the attack upon undergraduate liberties. The project was carried out. STONES AND BRICK-BATS ENTERED THE WINDOWS OF THE OFFENDING DON, and he himself was constrained to flee for refuge in his nightdress. Now arose the question of punishing the ringleaders. But before they could be punished they must ue discovered, and to this end the services of a private detective were sought. The private detective did not discover the ringleaders, but the ringleaders discovered the private detective. Having discovered him, they put him under the pump ; and the upshot of the matter was that the whole college was sent down, and stayed down. There is not much space left to recall OTHER OXFORD ROWS;

but a certain memorable row at Magdalen must not go unmentioned. It happened, if my memory does not mislead me, in the year 1883 That was the time when the (esthetic movement bad its little day at Oxford, and a great many of the esthetics were in residence at Magdalen. There were also a good many boating men at Magdalen, and the ."esthetics and the boating men did not love each other. One of the (esthetics had rendered himself particularly obnoxious to his fellow creatures. The intense and plaintive tone of voice in which he made his most trivial observations was in itself enough to give offence ; but the climax of his unpopularity came on the day when he went down to the Union Debating Society and demanded that the society should cease to subscribe for Punch, because Punch had aspersed the New Renaissance. A few days afterwards the boating men were celebrating their victories in the Eights Week. Flown with insolence and wine, they forced their way into the aothete’s rooms. He was a collector of china. The boating men laid violent hands upon that collection, and threw it out of window. Then they laid violent hands upon the (esthete himself. He struggled, but his struggles were unavailing. He was led like a lamb to the pump, and there deluged with cold water. Ultimately he escaped and ran, but the boating men ran after him. They pursued him across the quadrangle and up a staircase on the other side. The chase only ceased when he burst unannounced into the apartments of a don, and, with the cold water dripping from his clothing, flung himself down exhausted upon one of the don’s armchairs, and asked that the strong arm of authority might protect him from his enemies.