This is a society that has existed in the town of Cambridge for ages, whose functions consist in wearing the linen of the students who lodge in their houses after it has been cast off for the laundress. This same individual, however, had a taste for higher game, and one of the students, who had rooms in his house, being called to London for a few days, returning rather unexpectedly, actually found mine host at the head of the table, in his sitting-room, surrounded by some twenty snobs, his friends. Our gownsman very properly resented his impertinence, took him by the collar and waist, and, in the language of that fine old song, goose-a-goose-a-gander, “threw him down stairs.” The rest of the party prudently followed at this hint, leaving the table covered with the remains of sundry bottles of wine and a rich dessert. Thus the affair terminated at that time: but our gownsman being a man of fortune, and one of those accustomed, therefore, to treat his brother students, his friends, sumptuously too, went two or three days after, to his fruiterer’s, to order
DESSERT FOR TWENTY.
“The same as you had on Wednesday?” inquired the fruiterer. “On Wednesday!” he exclaimed with astonishment,—“I had no dessert on Wednesday!” “Oh, yes, sir,” was the rejoinder, “Mr. —— himself ordered it for you, and, as I before said, for twenty!” The whole matter was soon understood to be, that the lodging-house keeper had actually done him the honour to give his brother snobs, of the dirty shirt fraternity, an invite and sumptuous entertainment at his expense! Of course, he did not remain in the house of such a free-and-easy-gent. I name the fact as a recent occurrence, and
A HINT FOR GOWNSMEN.
But this is not the only way in which they are fleeced: the minor articles of grocery are easily appropriated: nay, not only easily appropriated, but a duplicate order is occasionally delivered for the benefit of the house. Some tradesmen have made
MARVELLOUS STRIDES ON THE ROAD TO WEALTH,
From various causes. I remember one man who, in six years, beginning life at the very beginning, saved enough to retire upon an independence for the rest of his life. Did he chalk double? I answer not. But students should look to these things. At St. John’s College, Cambridge, the tutors have adopted an excellent plan by which, with ordinary diligence, cheats may be detected: they oblige the tradesmen to furnish them with duplicates of their bills against the students, one of which is handed to the latter, and any error pointed out, they will be forced to rectify.
ANOTHER SPECIES OF FRAUD
Is a trick tradesmen have, in the Universities, of persuading students to get into their debt, actually pressing their wares upon them, and then, when their books show sufficient reason, forsooth, they make a mock assignment of their affairs over to their creditors, and some pettifogging attorney addresses the unlucky debtors with an intimation, that, unless the account is forthwith paid, together with the expenses of the application, further proceedings will be taken! though the wily tradesman has assured the purchaser of his articles that credit would run to any length he pleased: and so it does, and no longer. Such fellows should be marked and cut! It is but justice to add, however, that these observations do not apply to that respectable class of tradesmen, of whom the student should purchase his necessaries. The motto of every student, notwithstanding, who is desirous of not injuring his future prospects in life, by too profuse an expenditure, should be “fugies Uticam,”—keep out of debt!