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The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review, June 1924

I. The Capping Ceremony

I. The Capping Ceremony.

This interesting survival of the prehistoric past took place in the Town Hall on Friday, May 9, at (approx.) 3.30 p.m. The graduates this year were placed in the choir seats with the object of getting the rowdy element of the audience under the eye of Authority. Mr. Clement "Watson, acting for the Chairman of the College Council, made the usual inaudible speech, being cut off promptly after five minutes by the aforesaid rowdy element. Professor Brown got well on his way in an excellent speech, but defeated the a. r. e. by stopping at 4 mins. 55 secs. The graduates then filed past and shook hands with Professor Brown, who as Vice-Chancellor conferred the degrees. The function then ceased. We do not know who was responsible for the shame and scandal of totally ignoring the College Songs, which were printed on the programme—what might have been done was shown by the way in which "Just One Stave More" was sung by the students after the ceremony was over. There was absolutely no excuse for closing down the proceedings in the abrupt, bad-tempered way that was done; it was an exceptionally orderly Capping—there was noise, but it was well organised, and both speeches were given a fair run and dead silence. Authority threatened to throw up the ceremony during the reading of the graduates' names, and for this likewise there was no excuse. The only explanation seems to be that Authority had a very bad fit of panic at a peculiarly inopportune time.