SMAD. An Organ of Student Opinion. 1934. Volume 5. Number 1.

Fripperies for Freshers

Fripperies for Freshers

"Eureka!" yelled Archimedes as he rushed madly down the streets of his home town, arrayed only in his triumphant smile, and his dripping limbs proclaiming the great principle which had just slopped over the edge of his bath. Something similar must be the agreeable sensations experienced by the freshers who yearly storm our portals, having just been slopped over the austere edge of the great public school boiling vat and precipitated into the convivial atmosphere radiated by the carefree lads and lasses of the University. From the lofty heights of my eminence as a partly-completed graduate I have tried to analyse the feelings of these poor little bugs who come amongst us each year. Though I find them on the whole outwardly timid and unassuring, yet beneath these sober exteriors I have detected a dangerous bedevilment which makes my old bones rattle with apprehension. However, I suppose I may dismiss it. After all, what can they do? Hordes of them will no doubt be embarking on a course of economics, where their number will be as the seed of Abraham, mere dust by the roadside, and, anyhow, as members of the tradesmen's profession, accountants, bankers, currency advisers, and the like, of what significance are they? A few will go into the Church, but as the it in that profession is now as low as the threepenny-bit, we may take that as the standard of their importance. Others will go into law, in spite of the fact that almost the only law now practiced is that of gravity on Relief Works. Well, well, as an old grandfather who is by now wise in the ways of the world, I will content myself with giving them no advice, and merely wishing them the very best.

—A. McG.