ceeding his income. The expenditure
which would be excessive for the son of a clergyman, with a small
living, would be moderate for the heir to a peerage. It is further
required that the expenses of each term shall be paid before the
undergraduate recommences his studies, and any tradesman who is known to
withhold from the tutor's knowledge any debt, or portion of a debt,
owing him by any student, is immediately deprived of his license.
Nevertheless, all but a few of the more wealthy tradesmen conduct their
transactions with the students on the understanding that these
regulations are to be violated at pleasure. Thus, from term to term,
debt is added to debt, until the student is preparing to leave the
university. Then the tradesman becomes eager for a settlement. The
student endeavors to put him off with promises. The tradesman hurries to
a lawyer. A writ is issued, judgment is delivered, and the student has
to fly from the university without taking his degree, in order to escape
a prison. Or, if he is in his minority, proceedings are commenced
against his father, who, if he is a proud man, will rather pay the bill
than contest it, though the entire amount will seriously impair the
fortunes of his other children. Or he may deny his liability, plead that
his son is a minor, and that the articles furnished were not
necessaries. In this way, it has been argued by barristers on the
plaintiff's side that wine, cigars, jewels, and hired horses were
necessaries of life, and the presiding judge has sometimes ruled on one
side that they were, and sometimes on the other, that they were not.
Hundreds of young men have had their prospects in life blasted by this
system, and yet, no cure has been found. I heard of one instance, and it
was only one of many nearly similar, where an undergraduate had
contracted debts amounting to upward of $10,000 beyond his ability to
pay. Of this sum, I recollect some of the items: $1,000 was for cigars,
$3,000 for wine, $2,500 for the hire of horses, $1,900 for rings, pins,
and other trinkets, and only $200 for books. He had attained his
majority, and was sent to prison, his father resolutely refusing to pay
his debts. He languished in prison for two years, and died there.

Nor does it always follow that the undergraduate may be saved from this
disgrace and ruin by firmness and honorable principles. He is, for the
first time in his life, his own master. The superintendence of the
college tutor amou