A Collection of College Words and CustomsHall, Benjamin Homer
History
A Collection of College Words and Customs
Hall, Benjamin Homer
College students -- United States -- Language; English language -- United States -- Slang; Slang
"Noticeable among the cavalry were Don Quixote de la U.V.M.,
Knight of the patent-leather gaiters, terrible in his bright
rectangular cuirass of tin (once a tea-chest), and his glittering
harpoon; his doughty squire, Sancho Panza; and a dashing young
lady, whose tasteful riding-dress of black cambric, wealth of
embroidered skirts and undersleeves, and bold riding, took not a
little attention.
"Of the rank and file on foot it is useless to attempt a
description. Beards of awful size, moustaches of every shade and
length under a foot, phizzes of all colors and contortions,
four-story hats with sky-scraping feathers, costumes
ring-streaked, speckled, monstrous, and incredible, made up the
motley crew. There was a Northern emigrant just returned from
Kansas, with garments torn and water-soaked, and but half cleaned
of the adhesive tar and feathers, watched closely by a burly
Missourian, with any quantity of hair and fire-arms and
bowie-knives. There were Rev. Antoinette Brown, and Neal Dow;
there was a darky whose banner proclaimed his faith in Stowe and
Seward and Parker, an aboriginal from the prairies, an ancient
minstrel with a modern fiddle, and a modern minstrel with an
ancient hurdy- gurdy. All these and more. Each man was a study in
himself, and to all, Falstaff's description of his recruits would
apply:--
"'My whole charge consists of corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of
companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where
the glutton's dogs licked his sores; the cankers of a calm world
and a long peace; ten times more dishonorable ragged than an
old-faced ancient: and such have I, that you would think I had a
hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from
swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on
the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the
dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows.'
"The proceedings on the review were exciting. After the calling of
the roll, the idol of his regiment, Col. Martin Van Buren Brick,
discharged an eloquent and touching speech.
"From the report of Dr. Opodeldoc, which was thirty-six feet in
length, we can of course give but a few extracts. He commenced by
informing the Invincibles that his cures the year past had been
more astounding than ever, and that his fame would continue to
grow brighter and brighter, until eclipsed by the advent of some
younger Dr. Esculapius Liverwort Tar Cant-ye-get-your-leg-away
Opodeldoc, who in after years would shoot up like a meteor and
reproduce his father's greatness; and went on as follows:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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