Year: 1863




Certain feeble poetasters are always
mourning, that they are no LONGER in the
Classical or Commercial Seminary of
their younger days, but believe there
are few honest men who do not look
back upon their school life with a shud-
der. was not very bad boy myself,
l believe, but the comparison of my
Now with my Then is certainly not
odious. | can now meet cat without
wishing to kill it; can now meet two
dogs without yearning to set them by
the ears; can listen to the twitter of
a hedge sparrow without longing for a
horse pistol; | can pass is the street an
individual smaller than myself without
an incontrollable desire to jerk off his
nat and throw it over the wall. When
| go to church, l take church service in
my hand, and not novel of similar ex-
ternal appearance | do not extend my
pockets with flberts purloined from my
hosts dinner table; | do not smoke
bits Of cane until | am sick do not
think itungentlemanly to ride ina bus;
| am no longer attracted for any bar
row full of strange delicacies, such as
Albert Rock, or Alicompaine and if l
were, the fruit of all others which |
should leave untouched would be expos
ed slices of cocoanut. When | find any
foreign substances, whether of sticky
nature or otherwise, upon my fingers,
nature does not impel me on the instant,
to put them in my mouth; the appear
ance Of domestic fowl, or of donkey,
or Of an artizan upon ladder, does not
urge me to pick up stone; a police
man is not my natural enemy, nor dog
with bow legs and BULBS head my
friend. Upon the whole, in short, l
fatter myself that my relations to soci-
ETY. are improved since l was that
dreadful bcing-a Boy.


With such convictions. it is needless
to say that l do not court the society of
young gentlemen in statu pupiNari, but
avoid them by every means in my pow
er, from the ragged youth who plays
"tipeat' TO the peril of her maiesty's
lieges-in the London streets, to the
Etonian who, bedizzened with a scarlet
coat and sword on the 4th of June,
calls himself Captain of the Boats,
which | take to be the apogee of boy
hood-the position nearest heaven in
the eyes of that deluded genius. Still,
as long as boys are permitted to go
about loose, one is liable to meet with
them, and | met with specimen only
last week, which | shall not easily for
get. l was starting from the Waterloo
Station by an afternoon train for Hamp-
shire, but meeting with four military
friends who were going to Farnboro
Station Tor Aldershott,) | got into their
carriage. Beside us five, there was an
Eton Boy. There is no mistaking that
description of the race; they are al
ways dressed in the hight of fashion in
the vacation, although at school they
delight in hat with half its brim off;
and, moreover, they all wear stiff little
white ties, which give them the appear
ance Of duodecimo ministers of some
juvenile religious sect. The little
wretches are as naughty and reserved
as North American Indians; and the
individual of fourteen years of age
or so whom we had on this occasion
for our fellow traveller, looked as
though the entire railway station, plant
and valuable house-property adjacent
belonged entirely to himself. My SOL
der friends, however, "a class which
has generally proper contempt for
boys paid no sort of attention to him,
and as for me, Twas delighted to ignore
his presence.


'NOw, jack" said my friend, two of
whom were my college chums, and all of
them intimates, ''you will let US smoke
We know, although not fond of it your
SELF"


"Well,' replied l, ''it will probably
make me i'll ; but otherwise l have no