Capping Ceremony.

There are so many references, oblique or direct, to this Ceremony on other pages that to say anything more comes perilously close to vain repetitions such as the heathen use. Though it certainly was the quietest ceremony since the world was young, that was not on account of the Depression or "forbidding regulations in regard to public gatherings generally," but that has been said many a time and of.

Mr. P. Levi, the Chairman of the Council, opened the Ceremony before a packed house, and Professor Hunter conferred the degrees. The main address was spoken by the Mayor, who showed his usual sympathetic understanding of students and their incomprehensible hearts, and soon had them all on his side.

The undergrads. were loudly delighted to learn that the Professorial Board were the representatives of "mature and chaste wisdom," while the undergrade. (get this, lads!) represented the eternal spirit of unrest, and thereby a foundation for progress.

The Mayor hasn't forgotten that he was once an undergraduate himself; he. as much as anyone, enjoyed the unrehearsed grand climax to his anecdote about the Maori who passed through a tunnel for the first time : "when the train dashed from the darkness into the sunlight once more—"—the Mayor was saying—"Py korry, to-morrow!" roared a jubilant chorus from the left wing.

The College songs were not marvellously well sung, due perchance to the separation of the undergrads. (singing allegretto) and the Graduates (singing stately adagio) on opposite sides of the hall, with a trail connecting link of Flower Girls between.

Stray snatches of humour flecked the conferring of the degrees; while the bouquets presented to the girl graduates were ravishing and quite comme il faut, those bestowed on a few fortunate men were rather more appetising than decorative, and quite "comme il throw" to judge by their fate. With a prodigal hand (largesse, largesse!) Mr. H. J. Bishop cast the kitchen garden's best in the visor of the donor; never biff a gift horse in the mouth, Bish!

Several others received tributes that would have made any vegetarian's mouth water, while Mr. Tyer got a worn-out product of Micheliu; what a chance to "make hoopee" at the Capping Ceremony!

Whatever may be said about the general sedateness of the Ceremony, this was the best guarantee that the Ceremony will not henceforth be hurtled into the limbo of discarded rituals.