Educated Hoodluma.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 299, 16 May 1889, Page 3

Educated Hoodluma.

HOW THE OTAGO UNIVERSITY YOUTHS CONDUCT THEMSELVES.

The opening of the Otago University a few days ago was a disgraceful affair. The attendance at the opening ceremony was by no means so large as usual, but the students mustered strongly and formed a compact mass of hooting and yelling humanity at the extreme back of the hall. The students were exceptionally noisy, and it was with extreme difficulty that ten consecutive words could be heard at any time after the few opening sentences of the Chairman. The Chairman was Dr Stuart, for whom it might have been expected that some little respect would have been shown, but badly as he fared, the reception he met with was nothing as compared with the manner in which Professor Gibbons was treated. Throughout the Chairman’s address the students kept up a running commentary of audible remarks, and greeted each name with a burst of cheers or of hoots according to whether the gentleman mentioned was popular or otherwise. The disturbance got steadily worse throughout this speech, and, at its conclusion, when Profes sor Gibbons rose to deliver his inaugural address upon “ Astronomy,” he was greeted with a terrific outburst nf yells and shouts for '* Dawson ! ” As the s ; udents paused for a breath, Professor Gibbons struck boldly in with his address, aud during the lulls in the noise his voice might be heard going steadily on with his theme, and only pausing for a brief space when the noise became positively unendurable, which occurred on an average about every three minutes. Peashooters and musical instruments (except a solitary mouth organ) were fortunately absent, but their assistance was not needed to make the disturbance one of the most disgraceful that the students there have ever been guilty of. They sang more out of tune than ever, ‘Botany Bay,* ‘John Brown’s body,’ ‘Dulce Dornum,’ ‘ We’ll hang Johnnie Gibbons on a Rour apple tree,’ ‘ White Wings,’ and selections from various comic operas. They had a fugleman, and at his signal shouted in unison such ejaculations as ‘ Oh, spare us/ ‘ Keep your temper, Bobby,’ ‘Dry up, and quit,’ ‘Skip ten pages,’ ‘Hurrah for Wally,’ and similar impertinences. If Professor Gibbons ventured to lean on the desk he was instantly instructed to “Stand up, there,” and was elaborately thanked if he complied with the request. Dr Stuart made several appeals to them to behave in a more gentlemanly manner, but without effect. The Chairman’s arms, in fact, were constantly seen waving in the midst of the turmoil in the hopeless attempt to obtain a little quiet, Dr Stuart tried humouring the young men. He good naturedly thanked them for one song, and suggested postponing the rest. Another time he said : You’re desperately longwinded ; take breath awhile.” But this had no more effect than when, with an angry stamp he said. “ I’m ashamed of you. This is Professor Gibbon’s first appearance among you. Give him fair play. Where’s your heroism ?” On another occasion Dr Stuart pointed out how much smaller the audience was than on previous occasions. He said that those who took an interest in the university and came to these gatherings to show it were steadily being disgusted and alienated by the conduct of the students, and if this sort of thing continued the audience would vanish away altogether in the near future. To all these appeals the students had but one reply—they shouted ‘ For he’s a jolly good fellow ’ at the top of their voices, with an appalling rest on the last syllable of 1 fellow.’ The audible comments made hy the students were entirely witless and made simply for the sake of the noise. In fact, the students might as well have been the various animals whose natural sounds they were imitating for any good the lecture could have done them. Amidst all this disturbance the professor steadily ploughed away with his address until it was finished. If it began in disorder it certainly ended in pandemonium, for the noise then was simply deafening, Dr Hocken, who next rose to propose a vote of thanks to the lecturer, was greeted with cries of 1 Stand on the table,’ ‘Let’s see you,’ ‘Go and put heels to your boots,’ &c. Commenting on the larrikinism at the opening of the Otago University, a report of which appears elsewhere, the Wanganui Chronicle says:—“No allowance should be made for young men of education and position who could conduct themselves so outrageously as did the Otago students a few nights ago, when many of the best people of Dunedin assembled to do honor to them and their University. The proceedings of these educated hoodlums were beyond measure intolerable, and we are amazed to think that their superiors should have so far acquiesced in such conduct as to have put up with it. If the authorities were so weak, and had so little influence with or control over theic students, that they coqld not oorppel reasonably good behaviqur, they should have closed the proceedings, abandoned the ceremony, and shut the door?. Better never to invite the public to any ceremonial at all than to subject the visitors to ineessant annoyance and insult from the students. Better, indeed, that every brick of the University buildings should be razed to the ground than that graduates should be turned out, with their heads fall of knowledge, but without an atom of respect for themselves or their superiors, or anybody else. . . Are we to understand that the Otago University students are a set of unmannerly ouba who hrqok no. restraint, who invariably treat their superiors with disrespect and contempt, and whose conduct the other day afforded a fair sample of their general bearing to all and sundry with whom they are brought into contact ? Surely not. Ordinarily, we doubt no\ the students are well conducted—but, the hoodlurps amongst them select; special occasions to show how unmannerly they can be, and their fellows lack the self-respect necessary |o do other than follow ttyeij lead. But whatever reasons or apologies may be offered for such conduct, it should cerlainly be put down by a firm hand.