, or to be bullied by Snobs, or
given over to such to be educated. Our connexion with the youth at the
Universities is very close and affectionate. The candid undergraduate
is our friend. The pompous old College Don trembles in his common room,
lest we should attack him and show him up as a Snob.

When railroads were threatening to invade the land which they have
since conquered, it may be recollected what a shrieking and outcry the
authorities of Oxford and Eton made, lest the iron abominations should
come near those seats of pure learning, and tempt the British youth
astray. The supplications were in vain; the railroad is in upon them,
and the old-world institutions are doomed. I felt charmed to read in the
papers the other day a most veracious puffing advertisement headed, 'To
College and back for Five Shillings.' 'The College Gardens (it said)
will be thrown open on this occasion; the College youths will perform
a regatta; the Chapel of King's College will have its celebrated
music;'--and all for five shillings! The Goths have got into Rome;
Napoleon Stephenson draws his republican lines round the sacred old
cities and the ecclesiastical big-wigs who garrison them must prepare to
lay down key and crosier before the iron conqueror.

If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness the University
System produced, you will allow that it is time to attack some of those
feudal middle-age superstitions. If you go down for five shillings to
look at the 'College Youths,' you may see one sneaking down the court
without a tassel to his cap; another with a gold or silver fringe to his
velvet trencher; a third lad with a master's gown and hat, walking at
ease over the sacred College grass-plats, which common men must not
tread on.

He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is a lord, the
University gives him a degree at the end of two years which another is
seven in acquiring. Because he is a lord, he has no call to go through
an examination. Any man who has not been to College and back for
five shillings, would not believe in such distinctions in a place of
education, so absurd and monstrous do they seem to be.

The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentlemen and
called Fellow Commoners; they are privileged to feed better than the
pensioners, and to have wine with their victuals, which the latter can
only get in their rooms.

The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are called