The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-05-21 00:00:00

THE PRACTICAL JOKES AT OXFORD.

Astonishment, mingled at firet with incredulity,
is the feeling with which the story that comes from
Oxford hae been received by the public, and especially
by University men, remarks The Timea in a leader,
and thus proceeds :
The practical jkes of Undergradustei are sufficiently
notorious, and have at times verged on sacrilege and mis-
demeanour, hut this exceeds anything thet lingers in the
memory of the oldest inhabitant. It must go forth to the
world that the most brutal and senselen act of Vandalism
that has insane,' our time haa been committed by members
of the great lotuicati ti of Christ Church, young men
belonging to the higher classes of England, brought up In
the midst of the most reflood civilization, and receiving the
m.st ensile education tha the country can provide. The
account (the matter he that on the night of Tuesday in last
week the Library of Christ Church was entered, and several
busts, together with a marg., statue of Venus. of great
value, carried out by certain Undergraduate.. In the course
of the night a pile wa, muds of fagots anti mats, the
sculptures were put upon it, the whole set on ere, and the
works of art totally uestr.yeel. There haa been as yet no
official statement concerning the outrage and Its perpetrators,
but of count the facts are toleraby well known in Under,
graduate circles. The report is that two distinct sets
of men were engaged in the Imaginer.. The one
took the statutes out of the Library and stuck them up
about Peckwater ,one of the principle Quadrangles, as a
joke. The other set found them in Peckwa or, took them
down, made the bonfire, and destroyed them. Between the
two sets the louse has lost • tine bust of the I .te Dean Gaisford,
by Woollier, and other works ot the greatest value Truth is
Wenger than fiction, even on • subject which has so much
exercised the invention et novelists as University life. Cer
t Andy no writer would ever venture to desert be the "fast man "
of a College as wilfully destroying the choicest works of art
which it po.esses. Even the Imaginative author of Formosa
might shrink from such • stretch of the licence of fiction na
conveying something too monstrous to be accepted by •
gallery of cockneys. The thing, however. Is only too true;
it is the scandal of the hour, and the Governing Body at
Christ Church is engaged in invesitgation and deliberating on
punishment.

It is easy to predict that the punishment will be severe.
The offence is too gross for the ordinary penalty of rusti-
cation; it may be doubted whether even expulsion would
sufficiently meet the case of the ringleader. One of the
supposed offenders has already fled, and is said to have gone
to Pari, the last few days have been spent in apparently
unsuccessful attempts to induce the guilty parties to give
themselves up. Tne influence of Uudergraduate opinion
has been called into action, but the relation of Under-
graduates to offending members of their own order re-
sembles not • little the relation of Greek Society to
brigands. However much a particular act maybe condemned
and no doubt the whole community resents this disgraceful
and stupid outrage—it is thought that the offenders should
have their chance of escape, and that no undue advantage
should be taken of them. The present state of things, so far
an we can learn, is this :—The first set —those who merely
abstracted the sculptures and adorned Peckwater with them,
—are willing to give themselves up, considering, no doubt,
that their offence is of a less serious nature. Those who
burnt them are, on the other hand, unwilling to furnish
evidence against themselves In • matter which may
have the gravest consequences. The sentiment of
the Undergraduates of Christ Church may be under-
stood from the position they have taken up with respect to
the inquiry. iv Saturday evening last they held a meeting,
at which a resolution was carried that they viewed the out-
rage with the utmost regret. It was not even proposed that
the names of the perpetrators should be given up, but a
motion was made that it would be right for the perpetrators
to give themselves up. This wu negatived, a considerable
minority, however, voting for it. It may, therefore, be
taken ad settled that the guilty parties will not come
forward, that their companions who know them to be guilty
will not denounce them, and that the Dean and other autho-
rities of the House will be left to unravel the matter as they
best can. There has been some talk of"sending down" all
the Undergraduates, but these wholesale punishments are
seldom effectual, and in the present cue an universal rusti-
cation, besides confounding the Innocent with the guilty,
would only put an end to the investigation on which the
Governing Body is engaged. We are informed that evidence
which is considered to be sufficient has been procured against
certain persons, and wish respect to these proceedings will,
no doubt, be taken. It is not vindictive to espies, a hope
that the case will be so dealt with u to deter men from melt
atrocious mischief in future.

This outrage, however, disposes one to reflect, and to call
to mind incidents that might have been forgotten but for this
crowning scandal. The thought necessarily suggeste itself
that there must be faults oi discipline when the freaks of
Undergraduates thus culminate in an indictable offence If no
one becomes all at once very bad, so no society can produce
such a eel of rioters unions a great deal in the same
style though less serious, has been tolerated in former
years. If this be so, we cannot but think that It Is
the duty of the authorities to Intimate to the Under-
graduates that excesses of the kind will be more seriously
dealt with In future. These things are simply • stupid tr.
dicion, which each year hands in to the next. The men
cannot, and we are certain do not, feel any strong desire to
engage in these socalled lute," but there is a fashion, and
iii. followed. It used to be worse in the Army not many
years ago; an unpopular newcomer, for instance, was
subjected, In property and person, to persecutions
that were almost incredible. Public indignation at •
particular case forced the horse Guards to act,
and the rnowhing of furniture and so forth was put
an end to at once The same firmness would
produce the same effect at the University, On the other
hand, bad example and the prospect of impunity will urge
men to acts at which, in the sanity of reflection and solitude,
they will themselves wonder. While we feel the magnitude
of the offence, we must recognise that Ills the fruit of an
artificial demoralisation from which it is in the power of an
able and active broverning Body to restrain three Under It.