Hostel Life at O.U. In And Out of Windows

The renowned Scottish respect for education has resulted in a number of large hostels, usually financed by an individual benefactor in conjunction with a religious organisation, the high percentage of Otago Students "foreign" to Dunedin are mainly in these institutions and as a result of this social life is supposed to centre there.

This is true, but only in limited aspects. owing to the warden's unfortunate habit of locking up their women at ten p.m. The Hall where I stayed held both men and women, who ate together but lived in separate buildings. The inmates strongly objected to the paradox that although a rigid curfew was applied to young ladies, young gentlemen could come to breakfast in their dinner suits, which suggested that they were disposed to look for companionship further afield.

Nevertheless, co-operation among the women has produced a highly organised system of unofficial leave. One has only to whistle at the right window for the collaborator on duty to unlock the door at any hour of the night.

Unwittingly I whistied at the warden's window and, receiving no reply, climbed with great difficulty through a half open shutter. At the moment of extricating myself from a misplaced flower-pot the warden arrived, and in somewhat aflicious answer to my polite "Good Evening" demanded to know my way of entrance. Having decided that it was definitely unorthedox she strongly suggested that it would have been preferable to have asked her to let me in. In actual fact I had, and said so, but her reaction to this was unpleasant.

However, the A.W.O.L. system usually works smoothly, and no bright young thing allows herself to be seriously inconvenienced by middleaged respectability.

Vive L'amour!

—J.B.