The event of the summer at Oxford was the installation of our new Chancellor, Lord Curzon, who was by no means content, like the Duke of Wellington, Lord Salisbury, and others of his not indistinguished predecessors, to be quietly inducted into office by the university officials at his own country residence. There was a great function at the Sheldonian, and a Latin harangue from my lord which was both elegant and well delivered, though it was thought by some that his emotional reference to his late wife was a little out of place. Oxford had caught the pageant-fever which was this summer devastating England; and a great part of the term was spent (some cynics said wasted) in the extensive preparations for our own particular show. When they were all but complete, one of the historic "rags" by which Christ Church has from time to time distinguished itself broke out, in consequence of the House becoming head of the river; and among other excesses, some damage was done to the pageant-stands already erected in the meadows. A few days after this _émeute_ a description of it, which is really too good to be lost, {90} appeared in the _Corriere della Sera_ of Milan, "telephoned by our London correspondent." I translate literally from the Italian:-- Recently the students of Oxford were beaten by those of Cambridge in the great annual regatta: the other day they were defeated by the sportive group (_il gruppo sportivo_) of Merton College; finally, they allowed themselves to be vanquished by the sportive section (_la sezione sportiva_) of the Society of Christ Church, to whom was adjudged the primacy of the Thames. Yesterday, profoundly moved in their _amore proprio_, the students of Oxford permitted themselves to proceed to deplorable excesses, even to the point of applying fire to the _stands_ erected on the riverside by the rival Societies. They set fire also to the tent of the Secretariat of Christ Church, feeding the flames with the chairs which they discovered in the vicinity.[14]