My Friend Mr Bedlow : or Reminiscences of American College Life.

By Carl Benson, Author of "Five Years in an English University," &C.

A Second Part.

The reader will not have forgotten our young New-Yorker, Mr. William Bedlow, in sketching some of whose adventures at Yale College, Connecticut, we had an opportunity, not long ago, of giving a little information, which may have been new on this side the water, respecting American College-life, and the ways of young Americans generally. As American matters are stirring considerably at present, perhaps a few more reminiscences of the same gentleman may not now be unwelcome. Taking Mr. Bedlow up, therefore, at the point where we left him,—namely, at the conclusion of his first year—let us follow him rapidly through the rest of his College course, beginning at his second year, known, it may be remembered, in the vocabulary of the Yalensians, as the "Sophomore year, or year of the Sophs."

Bedlowsoon perceived that, if he continued to be a professed joker of jokes, he would end by losing the respect of his class nates, and forfeit all pretension to superiority, and all claims to office and honour. Therefore, in his sophomore year he set to work in earnest on he serious business of the place.

That is to say, he applied himself diligently to the academic course of studies?

Well, reader, not exactly. I was not thinking of that at all. I mean, that he went largely into the "speaking and writing."

Some prtion of this certainly does enter into the academic course. The students wite compositions once a week all the "sohomore" year; debates once a week all the junior year; debates or compositions once a week all the senior year. Writing English prose is as standing a dish at an American college as writing Latin verse at an English public school. Numerous composition prizes are given during the second year; there used to be eighteen in a class of a hundred or less. Still, the students, thinking these exercises had not sufficient influence on the final academic honours, and also finding no provision made for the art of extempore speaking, undertook to supply the deficiency among themselves; and they certainly did so. They edited a magazine, electing the editors annually from each successive "junior" class. To be one of these editors was an honour eagerly coveted and sought. To be president of one of the large debating societies was another great card; to be the first president of the three annually elected was an extraordinary distinction, and fearful struggles took place for it. It was no sinecure post of mere honour either, for the president had to read his "decision" of every debate, like a judge charging a jury, before the question was put to vote. Such honours as these, and the membership of the secret societies, were more thought of than any that the "faculty" had to bestow. And the faculty themselves had to acknowledge the power of the societies, particularly of the big "literary" societies, indirectly, in various ways. You, O cantab reader (you know I made up my mind at first that you are a cantab), would have some difficulty in realizing this state of things. You must look at the matter in this light As the original theory of an English university is that the majority of its alumni are to take orders, so the page 265 original theory of an American college is that the majority of its graduates are to become public men. And, though a large percentage of the American students will be clergymen, these form no exception to the rule; for, without taking into account the habits of lecturing and extempore preaching, the American clergyman is apt to be a public man, and have his say on political matters. Many of us firmly believed, and openly declared, that the collegiate was of no value for what we learned in the "recitation" rooms, but that its merit consisted in its being a preparation for, and a foretaste of, a political career. Certainly we did learn a great deal of human nature, political human nature especially.¹

Bedlow did very well at this business. He was decidedly quick and immensely confident; had a capital memory, and a convenient faculty of assimilation and adaptation. He could cento speeches and essays out of the multitudinous newspapers and reviews which he was always reading (you must indulge me in that new verb), just as one of your crack scholars centos Iambics out of the Greek Tragedians and Elegiacs out of Ovid. So he was elected secretary, and in duo course of time, president, of his society, and editor of the magazine—not without a hard struggle in each case, for he was far from a universal favourite, and the "beneficiaries" generally voted dead against him.

At the same time you must not sup-pose that Bedlow neglected his "recitations" entirely, or that he only just managed to pass muster at them. And here you may ask what sort of collegiate course it was that was so undervalued and so over-ridden by other pursuits. The best I can say of it is, that it was quite as good as you could expect under all the circumstances. The professors, as a general rule, were capable men enough, but they laboured under two great disadvantages, without counting the rivalry of the societies. In the first place, not being sufficiently numerous for the work, they were obliged to have recourse to the aid of tutors. These tutors were graduates of a few years' standing, regarding their tutorship merely as a pecuniary aid during their brief term of professional study, and having no permanent interest in the place, save only the comparatively few of them who looked forward to professorships. But a worse difficulty was the insufficient preparation of most of the students. "The greater part of them are spoiled before they get to us," were the very words of a professor's complaint to me. The best prepared generally came from the private schools, which I fancy do not differ much from English private schools, except that more attention is paid to the modern languages, and that the principal is not necessarily, or even generally, a clergyman. Some of our best classics came from the public school at Boston. It used to be rather "the business" for rich Bostonians to send their sons to the public school. It was a peculiarity of Boston; I never heard of such a thing in New York, or any other city. Whether they did so from motives of economy, or democracy, or simply because it was the best school in Boston, I am not able to say. They themselves gave the last reason.

But many of the students, particularly the beneficiaries and other opsimatheis, were self-prepared; which is nearly tantamount to saying that they were un-prepared. Some of them had gone through, or were supposed to have gone through, in one year, without a teacher,

¹ It is just possible that the above remarks may be somewhat rashly generalized, and that what is undoubtedly true of Yale, may not hold good of other colleges. Graduates of the American Cambridge, alias Harvard, have assured me that the undergraduates there do not think more of the societies than of the academic work. At Columbia College, New York, the regular studies certainly had the best of it, and perhaps for that reason were carried on more thoroughly. But Columbia, for local reasons, can never be more than a superior class of day-school. I have never seen an account of any American college commencement, or other celebration, in which the literary and secret societies did not figure largely. Besides, Yale, being the largest and most in repute of all American colleges, may not improperly be taken as our type and example of the system.

page 266 the proper labour of three years with one.¹ Private tuition, unknown within the college, is rare without it, for several reasons, not the least of which is its expense. If, therefore, the candidate is too old to go to school, he is generally compelled to teach himself.

By way of mending matters, the undergraduate is not compelled to begin at the beginning. He may enter the senior (the fourth.) year, if he can pass the not very difficult examination of the class before. Take notice that these are not merely cases of migration from other colleges, as a man might go from Cambridge to Oxford, or vice versâ, and have his terms allowed. There is a good deal of such migration going on among the American colleges, and some of them, like Certain halls at Oxford, have a Botany Bay reputation. But, independently of this, you may enter in the middle or towards the end of the academic course without having ever been connected with another college.

The consequence of all this was that a very appreciable fraction of each freshman class was extremely ignorant, and, as there were no divisions in the class, but all had to go on together, these kept the rest back. Still, the highest honours were difficult to obtain; but it was not the difficulty of a wranglership or a first class—having to know a great deal well: nor the difficulty of the Poll-Captaincy (when that institution existed)—having to know a little remarkably well. It was a matter of regularity and attention, little originality or research, but a molerate amount of work fairly prepared every day; for the honours were given according to the sum of the "recitations—" in other words, the lessons, collectively throughout a period of nearly three yea's in the first instance, and nearly four in the second. All vivâ voce; and the yearly examinations little more than a formula. (This is now changed for the better; I am happy to say, there are some pen and ink examinations, which take a wider range, and have their share in determining the honours.) The result may be stated thus—that, while it was certainly difficult to be among the first three of a class, it was easy enough for any one coming up decently prepared to be among the first fifteen or twenty. And this was all Bedlow wanted, as it gave him a right to a badge, and also an opportunity of delivering a speech of his own composition in public. He was not obliged to study much for it, but it was further desirable for his reputation and popularity that he should appear to have got his place without studying at all, or with scarcely studying at all. And this he did, 'exactly reversing the operation of the schoolboy, who pretends to study when he is idle. He had a knack of economizing odd ends of time—fifteen minutes here and fifteen there—when nobody suspected him. He smuggled books into chapel under the all-useful cloak, and learned his lessons during service. He was luckily gifted with a power of attraction and concentration, and could cram a page of mathematical formulæ while waiting to "cut in" at a rubber, with half-a-dozen men laughing and talking around him.

After Bill had gained his presidency and editorship, and been elected into every possible secret society, and had carried off all the first prizes for English composition, and even one for Latin—for he was fond of making shots at every thing (there were just five of us who wrote that year, and the three prizes were divided among us all)—his crowning glory was attained as a "senior" when he was chosen bully of the class, the original occupant of that honourable station, a fine' young southern gentleman, being compelled, by the state of health or other reasons, to finish his college course prematurely. The formidable name of this post had no reference to our friend's freshman exploits, nor did his holding it require him to perform any similar feats at the

¹ Three ears is the orthodox term of classical [unclear: prearation] for college. As the special profession a course is also three years, a complete American professional education may be said to [unclear: occuy] tea years from the time of beginning Latin, and the professional career to commence at the age of twenty-two.

page 267 expense of his fellow-collegians or the townspeople. In the early ages of the office, when rows with the "town-loafers" were not unusual, the term bully certainly did have its ordinary popular signification, of the best and readiest fighting-man in the class; hut at this more civilized epoch it signified simply the regular official president or chairman of the class meetings, nor was the post by any means a sinecure. The Yalensians had a vast aptitude and predilection for class-meetings. There were magazine editors to be chosen, or ball managers, or exhibition committees; or a member of the class had died; or a "recitation" had lasted three minutes beyond the hour; or they wanted to make a present to a tutor who was retiring; or they did not want to make a present to a tutor who was retiring. Somehow or other there was provocation for a class-meeting about once a fortnight. It has been remarked that preparation for public life was the theory at the foundation of our system, and in accordance with this we took every opportunity of playing at public business. This early practice is one of the ways in which Americans attain their remarkable patent for organization and despatch of work. Remarkable it certainly is, though the evil demons of loquacity and party spirit conspire at times to spoil it. When Bedlow took the chair, he quietly observed, that "he took it as a dictator of the class;" and nobody could be quite sure whether he said it in jest or earnest.

For Bill thought well of himself, as one rather born to command than otherwise, and was a very aristocratic sort of republican. American aristocracy is not a very easy thing to define anywhere; yet some approach at least to an aristocracy probably exists everywhere, and certainly exists in the colleges, although the authorities, as we have already re-marked, most positively do nothing to encourage it. In one sense, Bedlow represented the "swells" of the class, and in another sense the irreligious, or anti-religious party, and in another, the smaller and more exclusive secret societies, and he imposed on the collegiate world generally by his good looks and confident, yet not undignified, manners; and he had a little knot of us, his more intimate friends, who used to sound his trumpet for him, and electioneer in His behalf, and altogether his influence was sufficient to secure a working majority (though with not much to spare), and make him always safe for manager or committeeman, or whatever was to be chosen. Next to the admirers above mentioned, his principal associates were from among the Southerners, almost the only students of avowed and notorious aristocratic pretensions.

I must add, however, that not Bed-low only, but our Middle-State men generally, were disposed to fraternize with the Southerners more than with the New Englanders; and it was probably owing to this, as well as to their pulling all together, that these Southerners, though not above one-eighth of the whole number of students, had got the control of some of the societies above mentioned, and had an influence generally out of proportion to their mere number. As this inclination of the other free-state students away from the New Englanders, who formed the bulk of the college, and towards the youth from the slave states, struck me from the first as a singular phenomenon, I was led to reflect upon it, and study it out. It has a wider application than one college at a particular time, or all the colleges at any time; and, therefore, I give you my conclusions upon it, which may possibly tend to upset some of your established ideas about the American character.

You have, doubtless, been accustomed to hear the "Yankees" spoken of as "sharp" in business; and, because dexterity in bargains and speculations is often supposed (though not always with reason) to connote closeness and meanness, these terms also, by an easy transition, become affixed to the American character. Now, there cannot be a greater mistake than this. That the national mind has a business turn—that Americans, when they are men of business, are clever and hard-working ones— page 268 is true enough; hut it is not true that they make a niggardly use of their wealth when they have acquired it. They spend it as freely as they make it rapidly. If alieni appetens, the American is sui profusus. It may help you to correct the popular notion, if you consider that Americans are notorious speculators, and that, so far from a speculator being necessarily a mean man, the chances are that he turns out just the opposite. Also it is worth observing, that the most striking examples on record in America of men approaching to the conventional type of the miser, have been foreigners, or sons of foreigners. Throughout the list of avaricious millionaires, you will find with difficulty an American name; if you do find any, they are New England ones. In public charity and private hospitality, the Americans are far ahead of any European nation; indeed, all European nations seem mean to them in these respects, particularly in the latter. The early New Englanders, however, formed a marked exception to this national trait; they certainly were close-fisted—which was owing, in a great measure, to sheer necessity, and the poverty of their country. City New Englanders have got pretty well over this; but the thing still exists in some of the country towns, and the name of the thing has stuck to all New Englanders, and diminished the popularity to which their enterprise and other virtues would else have entitled them. This I believe to be the true reason why so many middle-state men prefer the Southerners as associates, though it may not be the one usually assigned.

Bedlow, being a swell, was better lodged than most of us. When a student "roomed" out of college, his apartments generally consisted of one large room, which served both for bedroom and study. The arrangement for those who occupied the college buildings Was that each two had three rooms between them—a bedroom a-piece, and one sitting-room in common. The freshmen were "chummed" together at random; in the subsequent years every man selected his mate; but Bedlow appropriated all three rooms to himself, by the simple process of buying-out his room mate, who had previously agreed with him to have his lodgings paid elsewhere—no very immense outlay, something like £6 for the whole year. These Yale College apartments were not quite up to Trinity or Christ Church standard, as you may suppose. They rather resembled continental barracks. Carpets, though not so rare as at a German hotel, were by no means de rigeur. Bill, however, had furnished his sitting-room comfortably, and even elegantly; in the one article of looking-glass, I fancy it was stronger than most English rooms. Likewise, our bully did not clean his own boots—a rare and aristocratic luxury, which shows you how primitive our habits were, not-withstanding our propensity to flash toilettes.

There were no female servants employed about the college, unless there may have been two or three in the kitchen. The beneficiaries waited in hall as I have already told you; the rooms were supposed to be taken care of by three or four men called "sweepers," whose duty extended only to making the beds daily, and sweeping the rooms occasionally. But there were some half-dozen servants, who, though unattached to, and unrecognised by, the college, were virtually the scouts or gyps thereof; each of them served eight or ten masters, brushing their clothes and boots, lighting their fires, &C. These servants were mostly "persons of colour," and found their patrons chiefly among the Southerners and the law-students.

Many of us "boarded," i.e. took our meals out of college. The price was little more at a boarding-house, the provender decidedly better; we could form our own set, and there was a sprinkling of ladies' society. Bill was in his glory at our boarding-house.

Thus far I have said nothing about Bedlow's sports and exercises. The chapter of them would be as short as the traveller's account of the snakes in page 269 Iceland. According to your idea of exercise and recreation, he, we, all of us, could scarcely he said to take any at all. Most of us could ride tolerably; yet we scarcely ever mounted a horse; indeed, there were very few in New Haven to mount. As to walking, I doubt if you would consider Bill's swaggering saunter, with his hands in his pockets and his cap on his left ear, from the college to the boarding-house, and from the boarding-house to the post-office, worthy of that name. It was more to show off himself and his clothes than for any other purpose. Boating was unknown; such games of ball as once existed had fallen into disuse. The national ten-pin alley was doubly illegal, municipally as well as academically; billiards, of which Americans are nearly as fond as Frenchmen, lay under the same law. Even those great institutions of the country, the "fast crab" and the trotting waggon, had not penetrated into our academic seclusion.

One cause of this state of things was undoubtedly the sour, anti-jovial, puritanic spirit, which regards all liveliness, and noise, and romping, as positively wicked. If I were to tell you that, the evening after Bedlow's elevation to what he had chosen to term the office of dictator, some of his friends assembled under his window, and gave "three cheers for our new bully!" in good old Anglo-Saxon style, and that, at a prayer-meeting then going on in a neighbouring recitation-room, a special prayer was immediately put up for the cheerers, the proof of their lost and desperate condition being that they had cheered as aforesaid, you might be inclined to suspect me of exaggeration; yet such is the simple and unvarnished fact. To be sure, a large number of the students, perhaps a majority, would certainly not refrain from any practice, but rather the reverse, because it was forbidden by the "blues," as the religious portion were sometimes called. But then came in that absurd idea of sham dignity. These youths of eighteen were men, and men must now play like boys! Catch Mr. William Bedlow pulling off his coat for a game of ball, or endangering his fine new pantaloons by jumping a fence! Still, if he did not take exercise, he required some amusement. A good deal of that he took at the secret societies, where eating and drinking occasionally relieved the feast of reason. A little of it he took in ladies' society at his boarding-house, or in families that he knew; it was a great provocation to dress, and Bill had an easy flowing style of conversation, nor was he averse to an occasional dance after the mild manner permitted in New Haven—for the polka was not yet invented, and even the old triple-time waltz would have been too much for New England propriety. The American students are almost as fond of singing as the German students; on moonlight nights, small parties of us would ramble out to serenade with our most sweet voices the young ladies' schools, of which there were several in different parts of the town. If we could catch the outline of some white draperies flitting about in the unlit bedrooms, our innocent vanity was highly gratified. When we felt hungry after these excursions (which might very well happen with our one o'clock dinners and six o'clock teas), we supped at one of the half-grocer, half-confectioner establishments with which the place abounded, on oyster stews, poached eggs, and similar unexpensive viands. We could not have had supper in our rooms, unless we had cooked it ourselves—a feat for which our stoves were not precisely adapted. We did have certain convivialities in our rooms however; the greatest possible "spree" was to brew punch (hot or cold, according to the season), and play long whist without stakes. Perhaps the knowledge that we were doing something utterly forbidden supplied the requisite zest. There was not much ready money among us, to be sure—very little in proportion to our swell attire : but I suppose there never was a collegiate town in the world where the great institution of Tick did not exist to some extent. And here, while I am touching on the question of expense, it may be remarked, page 270 that, as the actual necessaries of life, board, lodging, and fuel, were cheap at New Haven, the tuition far from dear, and the temptations few, it was hardly possible to spend a great deal of money if one tried. Bill managed to see the end of 700 dollars (£140) every year; his father grumbled at the allowance, and I have no doubt many of his fellow-students thought it monstrous. To return to the cards; though not over-burdened with change, we certainly might have played sixpenny and shilling points without serious damage to our finances, but we never felt any inclination to play for money.

Since that day, young America has grown wiser in some things, and wilder in others. I am afraid young America gambles occasionally, possibly to a very mischievous extent. On the other hand, he has learned that it is not unmanly, but the reverse, to play ball and patronise the gymnasium.

If Bedlow had any other amusements in the vacations of a more exceptionable character than the above-mentioned, I never know anything about it; and he took can never to tell me. Young American, perhaps all Americans, have a reputaton for bragging, and they do brag [unclear: about] many things; but, unless they have live, long in France, they do not habitually boast of their profligacy.

And this brings us to the most important mtter of all. You may be curious by his time to know what were Bedlow's ideas and opinions on the subject of religion. Here I cannot give you a favourable report; indeed, to tell the truth Bill was an avowed infidel. I do not mean that he professed himself such on the green in front of the college, of in any other place whence it might come to the ears of the "faculty." Had he one so, he would have been expelled s certainly as if it had been known tht he kept playing-cards in his room. Tere was an express clause in the colle code to that effect. But among his friends he made no secret of his unbelif, and he was far from being the only septic. The thrice-unfortunate system wlch arrayed the "professors of religion," and the "unconverted" in two hostile camps, tended to drive every student into one of the extremes, fanaticism or infidelity. The non-professors charged the "blues" (very unjustly, I believe) with being spies for the faculty; the "professors" charged the "impenitent" (of whose actual mode of life they had an extremely vague and limited knowledge) with all things horrible and awful. Religious considerations embittered the college politics. When we elected Bedlow first president of our literary society (by a majority of only six votes out of a hundred and twenty) all the members of the college church belonging to the society voted against him in a body. There were some half dozen of us, episcopalians, who mixed with both parties, and, though we were the lowest kind of Church, our congregational fellow-Christians regarded us with much suspicion and many misgivings, because we were known to eat suppers occasionally and did not join the tee-totallers.

Of course Bedlow and I had numerous theological discussions. We were always discussing something, and I fancy religion, after politics, was what we argued most about. We used to go at it hammer and tongs for hours together—the old school of course; neither of us knew anything about the Germans; it was Paley and Watson on one side, Paine and Volney on the other. We left off generally about where we began, and began next time where we had left off. Bill looked upon me as a very good fellow, only a little weak in that particular point. If he had possessed all the learning and ability of Mr. Mill, Mr. Buckle, and two or three continental philosophers combined, he could not have talked in a more patronising, pitying way of Christianity and Christians.

And now that we have pretty well sketched Mr. Bedlow's antecedents, it may be time to inform you that he is no longer an undergraduate. He and his friend your humble servant are bachelors of some nine months' standing, and members of the law school. An American A.B. is not still considered page 271 an undergraduate, like an English B.A., although so much younger. As the Master's degree confers no vote or privilege, and is of no possible use that I am aware of, except to the college treasury, many, probably the majority, never take it, though the fees are not very terrifying, somewhere about £2. I positively do not recollect whether I ever took my A.M. at Yale or not; if I did, it certainly was not at the regular time. After the student's first degree, his connexion with alma mater may generally be considered as terminated, unless he remains one, two, or three years in one of the professional departments. We may here remark that, though Yale has always been called a college, it is a complete university according to the American acceptation of the term.¹ The American idea of a university is a preparatory college, connected with, and completed by its three professional "schools"—that is, departments or faculties. The general department is one and undivided; for, though you hear different colleges spoken of at Yale—North College, South, Middle, &C.—these merely correspond to the different courts of an English college.

The professional students, in virtue of their graduateship, are released from all undergraduate discipline. They have only a couple of lectures to attend daily, and even at these their presence is not very rigorously exacted. Chapel has no more terrors for them.; if they lodge near enough to be awakened by the once formidable bell, they turn over and go to sleep again with a very suave mari magno feeling. It is hardly necessary to say that their tendencies are more oratorical and argumentative than ever; they begin to write in the local papers, and to take part in political meetings. The life of the law students, in particular, may be defined as a perpetual discussion.

We will now, if you please, shift the scene from the public street to the public parlours (which also serve as reading-rooms) of the Tontine Hotel. Time, ten in the evening, or thereabouts. Besides some outsiders from the town, a knot of students are assembled there. They are all members of the law-school. You will rarely see an undergraduate in the hotel. Dining there is expressly prohibited to them by the college laws, but there is another and a more potent reason. Class distinctions, that is to say, distinctions of seniority, are strangely and strongly marked. Seniors consort with seniors, juniors with juniors, sophomores with sophomores, graduates with graduates. It is decidedly infra dig. to mix with the years below you.

Some of the party have been drinking at the bar, several of them are smoking, most of them talking. The staple of their conversation is politics, with an occasional interlude of tailory.

"You say you have all the intelligence and education of the county. Why, we have more of the literary men on our side. There's Cooper and Bancroft, and Willis and Irving—"

"Washington Irving isn't a Locofoco."

"What did he write that article in the Knickerbocker for then?"

"I don't care. I know him, and I know he isn't a Locofoco."

"Oh! you know him. What does he say about the slavery question?"

"He says it's a black business, and he washes his hands of it."¹

"Hollo! here's Clark! Why, where have you been this last age? Anticipating the vacation?"

"Yes, I went to New York for two weeks." (An American never says a fortnight.)

¹ This merits notice also as about the only American instance of anything being called by a less ambitious name than the reality.

¹ Verbatim from a letter to the writer of this article. Irving was fond of old jokes, but he introduced them with such a grace that they appeared almost original. He was claimed by all political parties and acknowledged none. Both sides were always ready to give him diplomatic appointments, when he would accept them. Among the strange perversions of fact recently circulated about America, none is more striking than the assertion that literary men are shut out from all political advancement—the truth being directly the reverse, that continual efforts are made to drag them into politics in spite of themselves.

page 272

"And what spree were you after there?"

"Nothing particular. Played billiards mostly. Used to go to the Washington Hotel."

"And did you lay them all out?"

"No, some of them were a little too many for me, especially one very cool fellow—an illustrious foreigner he was. I saw he was a foreigner by his moustache" (we have already observed that those articles of luxury were then a rarity in America); "and, as he never said anything, I thought perhaps he didn't speak English; but, bless you, he speaks it as well as you or I when he chooses. I felt rather curious about him and asked, and who do you think it was? A Buonaparte, a nephew of the Napoleon! He had been kicking up a mess in Switzerland or somewhere; so they sent him over here to keep him out of mischief."

"Poor devil! To think he might have been a great man somewhere now, if Waterloo had only turned out the other way!"

"I say, Clark, did you get those pantaloons made in New York?"

"Of course, at Francis, the French tailor's; and, do you know, Stone, the new tailor here had a pair making at the same time. He means to put them on and stand at his door to draw customers : people will think he made 'em himself."

"Look here, boys! John Bell's nominated for governor of Tennessee. Who'll bet a supper that he doesn't get five thousand majority?"

"I say any man that utters such a sentiment as that is a scoundrelly demagogue."

"And I say any man that applies such an epithet to the President of the United States, who is a personal friend of mine, is a d——d liar."

The last assertion, of a character decidedly tending to "disturb the harmony of the meeting," must be set down to the credit or discredit of Mr. Bedlow. It was brought about in this wise.

A Very large majority of the Yalensians belonged to the Whig (that is the Conservative) party. Students usually are in opposition to the Government; under despotisms revolutionary, under democracies reactionary. But Bill was a stout democrat, either because it was rather distingué to be so where almost every one was on the other side, or for the good old reason that his father was so before him.

There was then residing in New Haven a young English doctor named White. He was not known as the "Britisher,"—that being one of the Americanisms never heard except out of America. He was at all respectable-looking man—nothing particularly remarkable about him, unless his taking some interest in the political discussions then going on might be called remarkable, considering his country; for, generally speaking, the English and French emigrants abstain from politics as notoriously as the Irish and German emigrants plunge headlong into them. On the present occasion he had been severely criticising some economical dicta of the president. The great political disputes of that day were on questions of finance and economy : the slavery question, now so formidable, was only just beginning to develop itself. Bedlow, when a schoolboy, had once been patted on the head by the president (then vice-president, and on a visit to Bill's father); hence his claim of personal friendship and his eagerness to take up the matter as a private quarrel.

Political discussion was so much our daily exercise and amusement that no one ever so far forgot himself as to use coarse language. Bill's unusual out-break caused a dead silence. Satisfied, however, with having put down for the moment his antagonist, he relapsed into the study of a newspaper. The doctor, taken all aback at first, speedily rallied, and, advancing to Bedlow, touched him on the shoulder. The New-Yorker was on his feet in an instant.

"That was a very impertinent remark of yours," said White.

Either Bedlow in his turn was at a loss for words, and, like many greater men, saw no clearer way of getting through the scrape than fighting it out; page 273 or he suspected that the other's speech was intended as a prelude to something more demonstrative, and resolved to anticipate him. At any rate, his only answer was a practical one. Stepping back half a pace, he let fly a tremendous left-hander at the doctor. Whether he "slung his hand up from the hip," as seems to be the fashion nowadays, or struck straight out from the shoulder, as they used to say in my time, I will not pretend to say; but it was certainly a "sockdologer," and rendered all the more effective by the big society ring which adorned Bill's little finger, and now left its impress very legible under the doctor's eye.

White was too angry, and perhaps also too much out of practice (that kind of practice) to make a regular boxing match of it. He threw himself, "quite promiscuously," upon Bedlow; the men clinched, and would have gone off into a rough and tumble, had not the five or six of the company nearest promptly interfered. The feeling among all respectable classes at the North leads them to stop combatants rather than form a ring for them. The belligerents were speedily pulled apart and pacified by their respective friends.

The disturbance was over almost as soon as it began; indeed, a stranger who had arrived five minutes after the blow was struck would not have suspected that anything unusual had taken place, unless he had noticed the doctor's black eye, or his antagonist's ruffled plumage. In no part of Anglo-Saxondom is the Anglo-Saxon calm on occasions of difficulty or danger more conspicuous than in the northern states of the Union; and it often serves them in good stead.

Our Tontine party, therefore, broke up very quietly. Everybody was sup-posed to have held his tongue, and, as duelling is not a custom of the northern states (never having been since Burr shot Hamilton), nobody supposed that the affray would have any further consequences. But, two or three days after, the rumour spread rapidly that Dr. White, probably over-advised by some of his friends, had laid an information against Bedlow, and that the pugnacious student was summoned to appear next morning at eleven before old Justice Atwater, there to answer to the charge of assault and battery, breach of the peace, &C. &C.

Old Atwater was one of the few remaining relics of a type and generation then nearly, and possibly by this time quite, extinct. He wore long worsted stockings and knee-breeches—the latter a most uncommon sight in America, where, for lack of "cross-country" habits and habiliments, a man may very well live all his life without seeing any other species of "continuations" except the ordinary pantaloons. He was obviously of "the old school," yet by no means the clean, well-brushed, neatly got-up figure that early reading and tradition leads one to associate with the idea of the old school. Indeed, he might rather have been described by the epithets which tourists are wont to apply to Italian monks and other picturesque mendicants—"venerable but dirty,"—only he did not carry either adjective to the extent that they do.

I had seen a good deal of the justice during my Freshman year at a hoarding-house which he used to frequent. As I was then a youth fresh from the city, with no experience out of it, he seemed to me a most extraordinary animal. His language was as odd as his dress. When he asked if such a one was a fore-handed, farmer, I, in my greenness, wondered if any of the Connecticut cultivators were really quadrumanous. All manner of vegetables he indifferently denominated sarce (sauce); and his pronunciation deviated even more from the Johnsonian standard than the specimen of modern New-English in the "Biglow Papers."

The locality of Justice Atwater's court was as primitive and unpretending as his own personal appearance. It was a small office very partially and roughly portioned off from, and opening into, the grocery store of his relative, Mr. Horace Atwater.

A Yankee grocery, or a Yankee "notion store," is an epitome of almost page 274 everything. There is a story current respecting an "old curiosity shop" of Boston, that no article small enough to enter its door, and not exceeding a certain price, could be mentioned which it did not contain. An old joker, intending to quiz the proprietor, asked for a second-hand pulpit, and was immediately shown the article. Mr. Horace Atwater's grocery was not quite so extensive in its range; his stock in trade comprised only the following commodities :—first, every variety of eatable except butcher's meat, that is to say, all kinds of groceries, green-groceries, and spiceries, salt provisions, bread, and rustic confectionary; secondly, divers wines and spirits; thirdly, tobacco in its various forms; fourthly, all manner of clothing, with the thread, needles, and buttons requisite for repairing the same, also boots and shoes, hats and caps : fifthly, books of different sorts, especially Bibles, hymn books, and spelling books; sixthly, all kinds of cutlery; seventhly, cheap imitation jewellery; eighthly, wooden clocks; ninthly, patent medicines; and possibly some other articles which do not now occur to me.

Like some other statements in this paper, the above remarks must, I fear, be taken partially in the past tense. The American judiciary is already beginning to descend from its pride of place. The unfortunate system of election recently adopted in some of the most important free states, the reign of terror as regards all subjects connected with slavery in the south, have done much to debase and paralyse it. But we are getting too far away from our subject. Let us return from this too ambitious digression to the people of Connecticut, vs. William Bedlow, student, &C.

There was some excitement on the eventful morning, and the law-school determined to attend court in full force, that is to say, about thirty strong. No-thing very awful could happen to our comrade, for the highest penalty which the justice had power to inflict was a fine of 7 dollars—say 1l. 8s. But Bedlow,. wishing to play hero or martyr, had hinted his desire that we should "stand by him," though what we were to do by so standing did not precisely appear; however, our esprit de corps was sufficient to bring us there, putting curiosity out of the question. It was rather an occurrence, too, for the natives, and by half-past ten the office was considerably more than full, the students taking the best places, and the "town-loafers," including a sprinkling of small boys to fill up the chinks, occupying the back-ground. Justice Atwater was throned in state behind the light railing which constituted the bar, and just within which sat the doctor and the "counsel for the commonwealth," a lawyer of note in the town. Just without sat a closely packed line of students on such chairs and benches as the premises afforded; behind these a similar line; and the "balance" of the audience flowed all over the grocery, the partition between which and the office was more conventional than real, for such part of it as was not occupied by the door consisted chiefly of a framed open space, originally page 275 intended perhaps for a window, but quite unfurnished with sashes. The wooden clock in the office and several of the wooden clocks in the grocery, struck the hour of eleven at various intervals during a period of five minutes, but the hero of the day was not forthcoming. At length there was a stir; the outside wave of loafers parted, and in strutted—not Bedlow, but Tom Johnson, another of our New York swells. Perceiving that all the front places were taken, the new-comer vaulted over the head of one of his acquaintances, clambered upon an old stove which stood sentry in one corner, perched himself on the top of it and sat there with his legs crossed, looking down lovingly at his small feet which were encased in drab bottines, almost too delicate for a lady's wear.

Ten minutes more and no defendant. It was a clear case of contempt of court, and the constabulary force was des-patched to arrest the offender. The constabulary force of New haven consisted of one man; he was a middle-aged tailor with a large family; we all looked at one another with a smile and a common appreciation of the chance of his fetching Bedlow in case Bill should not be willing to come. Our anticipations were perfectly realized, for in less than a quarter of an hour, Mr. Tryon reappeared—alone. Bill then boarded at the Tontine and was accustomed to order breakfast in his room, another very aristocratic habit of his. The constable had found the door locked, and, on his intimating his errand through the keyhole, Bill had given him some very bad advice through the same channel. Mr. Tryon, whose position as a member of the Church prohibited him from visiting the locality recommended by Bedlow, came incontinently back to court—an indirect reflection on the justice which that functionary did not detect—and reported his non-progress. It was a case not of non inventus exactly, but, to use a phrase of Texan law, non comeatibus. For some minutes more things remained at a dead-lock. Old Atwater beckoned to the counsel for the state, Mr. Higgins, and whispered something to him. "He's going to call out the posse comitatus," said one of us; but Higgins, who had recognised me as a friend of the delinquent, applied to me to act as ambassador.

"Mr. Benson," said he, "will you have the goodness to step round to Mr. Bedlow and ask him if he can't contrive for once to finish his breakfast by half-past eleven, and not keep us waiting till dinner-time?"

Of course I assented, and, after duly charging a neighbour to "keep my place," made the best of my way through the crowd; but I had hardly gone ten steps in the street when my journey was cut short by meeting the object of it. Bedlow took the last whiff of his cigar at the door, spit out the stump into the mouth of a stray cur, swaggered into the grocery, uncovered himself by a nod that made his cap fall off, took one hand out of his pockets just in tune to catch it, elbowed the throng right and left, and dropped into a chair near the bar which a friend had instantly vacated for him.. He was more dressed and looked more impudent than ever. The rear rank of students stood up on their benches; the town-loafers nearly got upon one another's shoulders. The whole audience raised itself on the stilts of expectation and stretched out the neck of anxiety.

Higgins opened the case in a "neat and appropriate" speech, setting forth the enormity of the assault. Under ordinary circumstances he might have indulged in a bit of demagogueism against the students, but our comrade's known democracy (in politics) cut off that resource. The doctor was then examined, and stated the circumstances of the scuffle. Bill, in defiance of the proverb about the man who is his own lawyer, had undertaken to manage his case himself. He cross-examined White pretty sharply, with the view of making; it appear that the doctor had used expressions calculated to provoke a breach of the peace; but the attempt was not very successful. Bedlow then rose to address the court in his own defence. This was the great feature of the pro- page 276 gramme. Bill's early reputation as a wit had not been forgotten, and most of us expected that he would turn the whole thing into a farce. Quiet ridicule of the doctor's pretensions to cure the body politic, jokes slily insinuated at the majesty of the court, a mock-heroic introduction of the eagle and the lion, and possibly some other beasts of the world's menagerie—such were our anticipations.

They were doomed to disappointment. Bedlow, to use one of our own slang phrases, got upon the high notes. He altogether mistook his line. He began by quoting Horace to the great edification of the "town-loafers;" he went on to assume a difference of position between himself and the doctor which would have been untenable in the eyes of the law had he been a member of the privileged class in a country of privileged classes, and under actual circumstances was simply insufferable. Our party looked blank; Higgins sneered; Bill saw that he was "putting his foot into it," and his habitual self-possession seemed on the point of failing him. At that moment his good genius came to his relief and created a diversion.

Four students were standing together on a small bench in the front row. The court furniture was not of the newest description and probably never intended to be put so such a use. Quite unequal to the occasion, the ancient movable relaxed its joints. The supports spread slowly our on each side, and the four men were gradually let down upon the uncarpeted and unswept floor amid a cloud of dust and sundry strong interjections.

The audience were slightly hilarious. Bedlow joined in the laugh, observing that he "really didn't suspect his oratory was so efficacious." The justice, aroused by the damage done to his furniture, raised a lusty cry of "Order!" which was feebly echoed by the constabulary force. Johnson, from his porch on the stove made a dumb show of applauding with his kid-gloved hands. Rash youth! In a moment of forgetfulness he lost his balance, tried to recover it with a desperate wriggle, slid further down, finally clutched at the stove-pipe to save himself; and just succeeded in pulling the crazy machine after him upon the crowd below.

Tom, brought up on the toes of the man immediately under him, commenced an apology, supposing the pedal extremities upon which he had lighted to be those of a fellow student; then, finding his mistake, for the injured party was a "town-loafer" who had managed to squeeze into the front, he changed his tone, and began to curse him stoutly for being in the way. The stove-pipe was not so speedily arrested on its travels. Johnson's struggles had cast it quite loose on society, and it continued to circulate erratically, bruising shins, upsetting chairs, and causing men to back over one another, till it made its final rotation in front of Bedlow, and came to rest at his feet, as if to do him honour. "Damnation!" ejaculated old Atwater, starting off his seat, and losing head and temper together, at this fresh devastation committed on his property.

Bill's voice was heard amid the con-fusion suggesting that there was a fine "made and provided" against profane swearing in public.

The justice threatened to clear the court. How to do it might have puzzled him, even supposing the attorney for the prosecution had united his forces with those of the tailor-constable. However, something like order was speedily restored, and the old fellow then cut short any further attempts at harangue on Bedlow's part, pronouncing the assault fully proved, and inflicting "the highest penalty of the law," namely, a fine of seven dollars.

"I say, boys," quoth the incorrigible Bill, "which of you has seven dollars to lend mo?" He had come, doubtless out of pure bravado, without a cent in his pocket.

And now it looked as if the problem how the court could be cleared was to receive its solution, so general was the retrograde movement. I have said that we were not famous for having much ready money about us, and our state of page 277 impecuniosity was pretty legible on most of our faces. To have been committed in default of payment would rather have turned the tables on our friend and the joke against him. At length, after due consultation, myself and Johnson mustered two five-dollar gold pieces between us, out of which sum we discharged the fine, plus fifty cents costs.

It was whispered that this would be only the preliminary step to a more serious civil suit for damages on the doctor's part. That, however, never came off. A few months after circumstances compelled me to leave the law school, and I lost sight of Bedlow, as indeed of most of my associates. Once I heard dimly that he had been aide-de-camp to the Governor of New York, and had sported the handsomest uniform and best horse of the procession on that occasion; afterwards that, during a political tour, he had fallen in love, married a country girl, forsaken his profession and the chances of a public career, and settled down as a gentleman-farmer somewhere "up the river." Six years later, happening to be up the river myself, I accidentally encountered Bill at a dinner-party. He wore an old cutaway, and his boots might be described as a compromise between clean and dirty. He had a houseful of children, was a great authority on the price of apples, and talked seriously of "taking the law of" a neighbour who had trespassed on his grounds.