Confessions of an Etonian

by I. E. M.

This block is a very simple machine—merely a couple of steps. The victim places his knees on the lower, and his elbows on the upper step; but if the reader will thus place himself in his imagination, he will enter more immediately into the spirit of the thing.

In front of him he sees a couple of little collegers, to hold aside the skirts of his coat. On his left is Keate, like Jupiter about to hurl his thunderbolt; on his right "the birch cupboard;" and though he can see nothing, he has little doubt of what is in his rear, the instant he is operated on. "Neither intemperance nor old age hae, in gout or rheumatic, an agony to compare wi' a weel-laid-on whack of the tawse, on a part that for manners shall be nameless."

The church, though not very remarkable for its dimensions, may be styled a handsome and venerable Gothic edifice; simple and regular, with its sides supported by deep and lofty buttresses, the recesses of which form the boys' "fives-walls."

The cloisters form another small quadrangle. Over them are built the comfortable dwellings of the "College fellows," and "the College library," which is somewhat more appropriately furnished than that just described.

The Fellows have each been boys on the foundation, having been elected, according to seniority, to King's College, Cambridge, from whence they have been re-elected Fellows of Eton.

"Long chamber" is long enough to contain nearly the whole of the collegers, or boys on the foundation, whose complement I conjecture to be about seventy. This is a region of which I can give but an uncertain description, for few "Oppidans" cared to venture in. When I did, it was to be tossed in a blanket, so that, though elevated, my survey was hasty and superficial; but I suspect that the entire furniture to which a colleger lays claim, is his bed and bureau, tables and chairs being here as much out of keeping (if they could be kept at all) as at Stonehenge. En passant—this tossing was a pastime replete with the sublime and awful. That their efforts might be simultaneous, those who held the blanket, and they were legion, made use of the following neat hexameter:

"Ibis ab excusso, missus ab astra, sago."

And you go with a vengeance. "You shall fly from the quivering blanket, despatched to the stars." The suspense was fearful while awaiting the utterance of the ultimate syllable—how perfectly and permanently have I acquired this pithy verse!

The floor is polished once a year on Election Friday, by "rug-riding." This is accomplished by rolling a fellow up in a counterpane, here properly called a rug. To either end of him is attached a rope, to which five or six boys are harnessed. The floor is now well smeared with tallow-grease, over which the warm mummy, rendered still hotter by friction, is now drawn with delightful velocity. The polish thus obtained is admirable, and but the slightest flavour of grease lingers until the ensuing election.

The suburbs form a small town, composed of a few large and indispensable shops, together with the houses of the masters and dames, at whose houses the boys, not on the foundation, and who are denominated "oppidans," board and lodge.