NOT REALLY WILD

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 146, 12 February 1932, Page 2

NOT REALLY WILD

'OXFORD UNDER GRADS. FURTHER MOVES TO CURTAIL THE FREEDOM OF STUDENTS. THAT BORED DISDAIN. Two further attempts have been made to restrict the freedom of Oxfcrd undergraduates — one a petition to stop the university beagle -packs fiom hunting hares, and the other a notice from the Chancellor that membcrs of the university in statu -pupillarii were expccted to behave themsclves on the niglit of November 5, srys a writtr in the Cape Times. Oxford only has two beagle packs, one owned jointly by Magdalen, Balliol and New College, and the other by Christ Church. The petition is hy some loeal women who think harehunting cruel. But the Oxford heagles are never followed in a very serious spirit, and the number of hares they cqtch is hy no means a record, so that it is unlikely that tha petition will bear much fruit. But the mere fact that it has heen presented has caused a considerable amount of irritation, probably because undergraduates have recently been wrongly blamed for rags perpetrated on vivisectionists and those who oppose staghunting. I have several times tried, hut in vain, to probe the mystery of how Oxford acquired it« reputation for wildness. It is hy far the gentler of the two universities, and when anything really tough does happen in the West - End, it is usually started by Cambridge people in plus-foura, while those who come from beneath the dreaming spires look on with bored disdain. This ill-fame is probably due to the fact that the London newspapers keep livelier correspo'ndents at Oxford than they do at Cambridge, and also to the fact that, like A1 Capone, South African lion stories, and the "modern

girl," witless rags at Oxford are one of the most dearly cherished illusions of Fleet Street. Placid Society. In the ordinary life of the university any kind of "heartiness" is the subject of so much detached sarcasm that it does not survive long. Even Rqgger and rowing Blues, who have the airs and status of princes of the blood at Cambridge, talk quite nicely and modestly when they gather in anyhody's rooms at Oxford. It is, in fact, almost a ground of complaint at tlie numerous Soqth Afriqans in the university that they have imported college patriotism and a sprt of heman loyalty into an otherwise placid state of society. 1'n addition, a clash nowadays with the proctors and the "Bqllers" whom they take round with them to subdue riotous people is more of a bore than qn excitement. In the first place, "Bullers" are now not nearly so gentle as they were in the less democratic days before the war, and in the second place even undergraduates whose parents are well offcannot afford to pay anything up to £5 in fines. I have never seen such an efficient capture as on the last occasion when I visited Oxford. One young man, dressed in kilts for an Trish dinner, carae out of a forbidden public house wiping his mouth. He was big, meaty, and arrogant, and when the jproctor asked him for his name, he took off a "Buller's" hat and ran. He was no mean sprinter, but he had not covered the hundred yards before the "Bullers," both elderly men, had hrought him down, and using all the most fashionable police arm-twists, had also accounted for friends who rushed to his aid. The reputatiqn for snobhishness, idleness, and general arrogance which the university has mysteriously acquired is also completely undeserved. People with rich papas the university has in plenty, but most of the undergraduates come of families with mo- ] dest means, and have to work to I enierge with some sort of decorativc 1 degree.