Capping Ceremony

This function, about which there seems to be less to say every year, was held in the Town Hall, which was filled to the brim with fond relatives and the merely morbidly curious, besides a phalanx of the student body (divided apparently into bridesmaids and others), on the afternoon of May 28th, after the exhausting preliminaries of the Procession and the Graduates' Luncheon. The hours of waiting were whiled away in the page 12 usual fashion with mirth and melody, and we sincerely trust the vast gathering of admiring kinsmen, etc., were amused to the same extent as the participants. The profs were ranged grimly upon the stage and the graduates, in the choir-seats as last year, did their best to look wholly at ease.

Mr. Levi then made his usual unfortunately inaudible quota of remarks, and Professor Brown rose to deliver a speech that alas, remained largely unsaid. It was broken after four minutes by the singing (with more gusto than was put into the Final Chorus afterwards) of "John Brown's Body." Professor Brown thereupon declined to continue his speech, informed the songsters that he was ashamed of them, and threatened to close down the proceedings and confer the degrees in private. This thunderbolt was countered by "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and an evident willingness to allow the speech another airing, but the Vice-Chancellor was adamant and proceeded to confer the degrees with unoratorical dignity. The list lengthens every year and was notable this year for—we believe—the first Ph. D. conferred in New Zealand. An attempt was made to hail the graduates of the year musical-wise—a very worthy object, which we hope will meet with more success in the future than it did on this occasion. A heartbreaking rendering of the Final Chorus completed the ceremony.

We do not propose to moralise on the murdered address. Let the dead bury its dead. Apparently "John Brown's Body" will continue to be sung, and the blasphemy does not seem to us as outrageous as its reception would apparently indicate. And "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" was certainly rendered with enthusiasm and seeming sincerity.

But, O! Songs of Victoria College!