LARRIKIN STUDENTS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 358, 1 October 1889, Page 2

LARRIKIN STUDENTS.

The students at some pf our Colleges by their extraordinary behaviour pt times, promise to show eff their cleverness In aping the clown much bettsy than in the more sober paths of life for whii?h their education ought to fit them, The pro-> ceodings io the College hails al Christ *

church and Dunedin have at periods been nothing short of disgraceful. A certain ceremony has been turned into a Saturnalia, and the authorities have on those occasions allowed the undergraduates a large license which has permitted not only the absence of all manners but the indulgence in much rowdyism. The students have on those occasions been allowed to make a theatrical mockery of the peculiarities or little eccentricities of the authorities, and to howl down any speaker who did not happen to be popular with them for the moment. The intended funnyisms are very poor food for laughter, the wholeperformance hardly being lighted up by a spark of genuine wit, while at the last “ capping ” ceremony there was a parody upon a well-known hymn. Parodying hymns will to many minds be con. sidered discreditable conduct on the part of young men who have been blessed with the opportunities of becoming refined and educated. It should not be permissible at any time in such places.

But the shocking proceedings to which we refer have occurred so often, and of course without check, that people have come to regard them as among those things which are to be endured. It is only an ebullition of youthful animal spirits, and boys will be boys, as the old saying goes. Still these periodical outbursts have lately been supplemented by a new departure which must be suppressed with a firm hand. If these boys carry on in a disgraceful manner in their own colleges they will find it stretching the liberty too far when they deliberately make themselves a. public nuisance. At a Christchurch theatre the other night a lot of these young gentlemen (?) appeared in the dress circle in college gowns, theatrical wigs and false moustaches, made more ridiculous by the use of burnt cork, and waving a flag and singing parodies of several popular songs. When such outrageous conduct is resorted to in the dress circle what restraint will it be possible to place on the rowdyism of the pit ? There is always enough pf that sort of thing, without such examples being shown by young men who are supposed in every sense to be far above the street larrikin, If there is any more of this tomfoolery it may lead to results that will soon restore the good name of the universities and allow them only to be made use of by those who aspire to a position from which larrikinism and buffoonery are regarded as degrading.