Graduation Ceremony.

Town Hall, May 10th, 3 p.m. (theoretically).Seats were early filled by doting fathers and mothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins, friends and casual passers-by attracted by the bustle and thinking the Social Revolution was at hand; all, apparently, under the impression that because a University function was timed to start at 3 p.m., it necessarily started at 3 p.m. About ten past three, the graduates' photograph had really and actually and finally been taken, and those heroes and heroines were enabled to form up in a long line and march downstairs into their places, solemnly and with ceremony, a little pathetic, something like a chain-gang. They were met by a wave of organised sound, which rose and fell at intervals throughout the proceedings. The programme opened with Gaudeamus and The Song of Victoria College, in the singing of which we noted a slight improvement from last year. The Chairman (P. Levi, Esq., M.A.) made a little speech. Mr. Levi's remarks were inaudible. The Sports Chorus was then attempted, it was ruined by the contemporaneous performance of some god-forsaken idiocy by the noisy rabble in the back seats. Granted that the Huntsmen Chorus front "Der Freischutz" is almost impossible to sing to the Sports Chorus words, and should be changed as soon as possible, is it too much to ask for a little respect towards one of the finest of our songs, one of which any college might well be proud?

At the end of this fiasco, Professor Easterfield, starred for the afternoon's entertainment, attempted to deliver an address. Unfortunately, the Professor is not very well known to the present generation of students, and his voice is not of the stentorian type: consequently his remarks, of a reminiscent type, were, like Mr. Levi's, largely wasted on the air. It was unfortunate, but inevitable. "Absent Friends" was then given with considerable vim. And then we had the privilege of seeing our own John Rankine Brown, elevated to the grand position of Vice-Chancellor of the University, confer upon eighty-five or so youths and maidens their appropriate degrees. Our Vice-Chancellor's gown of scarlet and gold embroidery was one of the features of the afternoon. He, too, endeasoured to make himself heard, but gave up in Chancellor-like disgust. Then the Final Chorus and a properly robust rendering of the National Anthem, and it was all over again.

But when will the Council learn to put up a speaker who can make himself heard above a reasonable amount of noise, whose sense of humour will not desert him on the stage of the Town Hall, and who will answer back retort for interruption debonairly and with alacrity? It may be all very well to roar like any sucking-dove in the lecture-room, but surely the Council has learned by now that at page 21 times something more is necessary? We are not defending noise at Capping Ceremonies qua noise; but what can you expect When speakers anyhow would be inaudible at a distance of more than a few feet?