ches and addresses of rival
orators one would suppose that the integrity of the constitution and the
very existence of the empire hung upon the return of their special
nominee. Two candidates are chosen from the most eminent of either
party and a day is fixed for the polling. Every undergraduate has a
vote, but the professors have no voice in the matter. As the duties are
nominal and the position honourable, there is never any lack of
distinguished aspirants for a vacancy. Occasionally some well-known
literary or scientific man is invited to become a candidate, but as a
rule the election is fought upon strictly political lines, with all the
old-fashioned accompaniments of a Parliamentary contest.

For months before the great day there is bustle and stir. Secret
committees meet, rules are formulated, and insidious agents prowl about
with an eye to the political training of those who have not yet nailed
their colours to any particular mast. Then comes a grand meeting of the
Liberal Students' Association, which is trumped by a dinner of the
Undergraduates' Conservative Society. The campaign is then in full
swing. Great boards appear at the University gates, on which pithy
satires against one or other candidate, parodies on songs, quotations
from their speeches, and gaudily painted cartoons are posted. Those who
are supposed to be able to feel the pulse of the University move about
with the weight of much knowledge upon their brows, throwing out hints
as to the probable majority one way or the other. Some profess to know
it to a nicety. Others shake their heads and remark vaguely that there
is not much to choose either way. So week after week goes by, until the
excitement reaches a climax when the date of the election comes round.

There was no need upon that day for Dr. Dimsdale or any other stranger
in the town to ask his way to the University, for the whooping and
yelling which proceeded from that usually decorous building might have
been heard from Prince's Street to Newington. In front of the gates was
a dense crowd of townspeople peering through into the quadrangle, and
deriving much entertainment from the movements of the lively young
gentlemen within. Large numbers of the more peaceable undergraduates
stood about under the arches, and these quickly made a way for the
newcomers, for both Garraway and Dimsdale as noted athletes commanded a
respect among their fellow-students which medallists and honours