Confessions of an Etonian

by I. E. M.

"The playing-fields" are very extensive, and subdivided into the playing-fields, "upper-shooting-fields," and "lower-shooting-fields." The two latter are separated from the former by "poet's-walk," a lovely little peninsula, with an avenue of lime-trees running through its entire length.

The shooting-fields are appropriated solely to cricket, and in winter are "out of bounds." The playing-fields are open for foot-ball in the winter, and for fighting all the year round. The whole is most beautifully situated on the banks of the Thames, with the Little Park and Windsor Castle on the opposite side. In addition, it is lined and studded with the stateliest and most gigantic elms in England.

These three divisions, the school-yard, suburbs, and playing-fields, form in theory "the bounds," which in practice are boundless, an Etonian's movements being curbed by time, rather than by space.

Eton, at its foundation, was a charity-school for seventy boys. In time, it received other pupils. The original ones are collegers, who are distinguished by a coarse black gown; the latter are oppidans, literally meaning "town-boys." The former may not wear white trowsers, and all are debarred boots, and black or coloured neckcloths.

Collegers are dieted solely on mutton; hence they are familiarly and vulgarly termed "mutton-tugs," abbreviated to "tugs," which homely monosyllable they themselves derive from togati, on account of their wearing the toga—had they not better trace their origin at once from that mysterious and secret society of the Thugs of India? But their internal economy should be treated with diffidence, for between them and the oppidans there was ever an undefined, though "great gulf fixed." Owing to this, there is a difficulty in deciding how much, if any, of the following incident may be authentic. As asserted above, they were confined to mutton, the whole mutton, and nothing but the mutton, until the humane, but late Mr. Godolphin bequeathed a sum of money, to be appropriated in supplying them with potatoes, which henceforth accompanied the mutton, though in a state of nature; and as this was not contrary to the statute, and as in all charities as little is done for the money as is possible, the poor boys and their potatoes were without remedy, until one of the College Fellows kindly bequeathed an annuity towards extricating them from their dilemma. He has ever since been appropriately immortalized as "Pealipo Roberts."

Each boy has a tutor, who is one of the masters, of whom there are about thirteen. Their chief occupation is in correcting, and explaining the errors of their pupils' exercises. At the period now spoken of, the school consisted of six hundred and twenty boys, probably the greatest number it had hitherto attained. Each master's house is generally filled with boarders.

The "dames" are boarding-houses, mostly kept by clergymen's widows, or widows of some sort; there are also about thirteen of these.

Assistant masters are professors of French, mathematics, writing, and dancing; but they are altogether independent of the college, and are taken or not at the will of the parents.

There is another class of assistant masters, and these are the Cads. They are the professors of shooting, rowing, and cricket, and have many pupils. The most leading characters among them were Jack Hall, Lary Miller, Pickey Powell, and Jemmy Flowers; but with regard to the latter there existed a slight odium, owing to his religious tenets—he was suspected of Mahometanism. Lary Miller ever asserted his conviction, that "Jemmy was a Maho-maiden, having surprised him one evening in the Brocas, lying on his stomach, worshipping a very large mushroom." Making due allowance for Lary's notorious veracity, and for Jemmy Flowers' religious inebriety, still the circumstance of a mushroom, and that a large one, flourishing on the Brocas, must ever throw a strong air of improbability over this assertion.

There is a holiday on every red-lettered saint's-day in the calendar; when this, or no other excuse occurs, it is termed "a regular week," when Tuesday is a whole holiday, Thursday half an one, and Saturday three-quarters.