One of the peculiarities of Eton in old days was that unless a boy supplemented his dietary by the purchase of provisions from the shops in the town he would often have to go hungry, and even thirty years ago in most of the houses the old Eton traditions as regards feeding were in full force. All the boys received was a loaf, pat of butter, and pot of tea for breakfast. Luncheon they all had together with their dame in the large dining-room; this was a fairly substantial meal. Tea taken in their own rooms exactly resembled breakfast, besides which there was a very light supper in the dining-room, at which attendance was optional. Almost without exception, of course, this somewhat meagre fare was supplemented by the boys themselves, who purchased appetising dishes from the sock shops at a reasonable price. An Eton custom at that day, which probably still exists, was for the boys to have what were called “orders” at one of these shops. This “order” consisted in an agreement with a shopkeeper to supply a boy with provisions to a certain amount every day, the boy’s father or mother having previously paid a sum in advance. The arrangement was, of course, intended to prevent the boy from finding himself bereft of all luxuries after the pocket-money given him when he left home had been exhausted; but, as a matter of fact, in the case of the more extravagant boys it almost invariably missed its mark, for, getting round the shopkeeper, they would persuade him to allow the anticipation of their “order,” with the result that whilst during the first fortnight of the half they revelled in every sort of delicacy, their breakfasts and teas during the remainder of the school time were unenlivened by any toothsome dishes. The most popular sock shops were then Harry Webber’s (now Rowland’s) and “little Brown’s,” the door of which the writer, on a recent visit to Eton, found shut.
The system of “orders” extended to other things besides sock shops, a dame or housemaster having the power of giving them for clothes or any other necessary. A boy applying for one of these signed permits was supposed to be able to prove that he was really in want of the article he wished to procure, and, the order being handed to him, was recognised by a tradesman as a valid voucher that the sum for which it stood would be included in the boy’s bill at the end of the half. On the whole this arrangement worked well, but occasionally unscrupulous boys, by arrangement with some not over particular tradesman, would obtain some other article which was really anything but a necessary.
Dames were sometimes easy about granting “orders,” and not a few boys prided themselves upon their adroitness in obtaining anything they liked, and some of them managed to run up comparatively large accounts with their housemaster’s or dame’s permission. An even more extravagant and reckless kind of boy would contrive to persuade some tradesman (generally a London one who knew something about the circumstances of his parents) to allow him to run up bills without any “order” at all, the understanding being that these should be paid when the boy had left school or came of age. One such case the writer well remembers, the perpetrator being a very dissipated youth celebrated throughout the school for always being in trouble with the authorities. This boy was a great dandy as regards dress, and it was currently reported that he never wore the same pair of trousers twice. This, of course, was an exaggeration, but he certainly had a wonderful stock of clothes. On leaving Eton he had accumulated debts to a considerable figure, and his after career was anything but a success, for after attempting various forms of occupation, including amateur newspaper reporting, he was last heard of keeping a little store in South Africa. An account of the curious professions adopted by Eton boys would fill a volume. On the whole, however, the majority do well, as, after all, is only to be expected, considering that in the first instance their parents must have been possessed of considerable funds in order to send them to Eton at all.
IMPISH MISCHIEF
Some tutors, unable to keep order in their houses, were the victims of all sorts of unpleasant jokes. One of the most mischievous and dangerous of these was to stretch a string across a passage and then set to work to create such a noise as would be sure to attract the tutor’s attention, with the result that when he arrived upon the scene he would be tripped up. Another diversion of a somewhat similar sort was to pile a number of iron coal-scuttles just at the top of a flight of stairs, and, after creating a great din, kick them down upon the ascending tutor, who would seldom be able to discover the organiser of the outrage. A more amusing trick was the following. A small Lower boy, having, with his own consent, been tied up in one of the huge dirty linen bags, was placed in the middle of a passage and told to keep perfectly motionless till he felt a slight kick, when he was to rise at his assailant and hold on to his legs, calling out the name of some big boy well known to all. This being done, all the occupants of the passage would set to work to make sufficient noise to produce their tutor’s appearance, upon which complete silence would prevail. Nine times out of ten the tutor, walking down the passage to ascertain the reason of the disturbance, seeing the dirty linen bag, would try and kick it on one side, with the result that, rising at him, it would clutch him by the leg and cause him to execute a multitude of undignified gyrations, to the delight of boys peeping through doors just ajar. When, finally, the small boy had been extricated from the bag, it was very difficult to punish him, for he would invariably plead that he had been tied up against his will, and in pinching his assailant’s legs had been merely acting in self-defence against some one whom he had good reason to suspect was a persecuting schoolfellow.
Throwing bits of coal out of the window at passers-by or shooting with a catapult used to be favourite pastimes with boys of a past age. Fierce battles were sometimes waged in the winter evenings between the boys in adjacent houses, when they would bombard each other with pea-shooters or squirts charged with ink or water. Occasionally this warfare involved onlookers in the street below. The writer remembers a great disturbance caused by an angry policeman whose helmet and uniform had been liberally bespattered with ink.
Some of the houses contained broad and lengthy passages, on each side of which were ranged boys’ rooms, a favourite amusement for the occupants of which was standing by the open doors and awaiting the cry of “Slough; change here for Staines, Windsor, Datchet,” when every boy would slam his door in turn down the passage with a view to produce the effect of a train about to start. Immediately after the completion of this manœuvre the boys would at once fly to their “burries” (bureaus), at which they would be found hard at work when the infuriated tutor or housemaster arrived to discover the cause of the disturbance. In some cases the unfortunate man would ignore the first performance of this ingenious form of torture, but a second and louder slamming seldom failed to bring him in hot haste from his private quarters. To punish for this kind of thing was exceedingly difficult, for the boys were, of course, at liberty to shut their doors, and collusion was not easy to prove.
A number of boys spent their time experimenting with electricity and chemicals, and the writer well remembers a friend having his face severely injured by the explosion of some dangerous compound mixed together in a flower-box. On another occasion the same boy (now a well-known sporting peer) occasioned a serious panic. Having inserted some detonating composition amongst the bricks of the railway arches over which trains run into Windsor, he contrived to make it explode just before the Royal train bearing Queen Victoria passed. It was a time when Ireland was in a very disturbed state, and there was much dread of some outrage. Consequently the Windsor and Eton police were convinced that the explosion had a political origin, and every effort was made by means of detectives to find the perpetrator. It was, however, never discovered that he was an Eton boy.
HOAXING THE PRESS