There were but a very few chairs for the Sixth Form, and the barrack or prison (boys were locked into it at 6.30 in the evening), with the exception of a table with a basin for the highest boys, was totally devoid of washstands, Collegers having to perform such ablutions as they might deem necessary at the old pump in the cloisters. The walls and ceiling were full of the grime of ages, whilst the whole place as a general rule was in a state of intolerable filth. Once a year, however, some attempt was made to give Long Chamber a habitable appearance, and the time-honoured processes to which it was then subjected were generally sufficiently successful in making visitors who saw it believe that all was well enough. For a week before Election Saturday, which took place at the end of July, “rug-riding” was in full force. A number of Lower boys were tied up in big rugs and dragged with a rope by other fags up and down Long Chamber till the floor shone like a mirror; the spaces between the beds were also scrubbed to a corresponding glossiness. On the Thursday, waggon-loads of beech boughs, cut in the College woods at Hedgerley and Burnham, were brought in and the whole of Long Chamber decorated; the green rugs, edged with gold and embroidered with the College arms, given by the Duke of Cumberland in 1735, were then spread on the beds. A huge flag was hung from the Captain’s bed and the whole aspect of the room transformed. Nevertheless the dirt remained beneath. Except at Election time Long Chamber was not accessible to visitors, and the King of Prussia himself was refused admission in 1842, on the plea that that portion of the College was never shown. [SN: CARTER’S CHAMBER] Things in the two other rooms appropriated to the use of the King’s scholars were not much better, and an extraordinary state of affairs prevailed in Carter’s Chamber. Whenever the chimney there became at all foul, the boys used to set fire to it, and, being very large, the roar it made when blazing was tremendous, generally much to the annoyance of the Provost, part of whose lodge was close by. The fires in question were made with large beechen logs, placed upon iron dogs, and the Collegers used to roast potatoes among the ashes. One of these logs every Lower boy was compelled to saw up before he went to bed, with a saw that had no edge. This was one of the most unpleasant features of a Lower Colleger’s existence, for the thinnest logs were always chosen by the biggest boys, leaving the heaviest for poor little fellows hardly strong enough to lift them. Not infrequently would the latter dock themselves of part of their rolls for breakfast in order to be able to bribe another stronger boy to saw up their portion for them.