Our ancestors held curious views as to the education of the young, and seem to have seen no harm in children being familiarised with the grossest forms of cruelty. Nevertheless the ram-hunting, after being modified, disappeared before the close of the eighteenth century. For some years, however, its recollection was maintained by a ram pasty served at election time in the College hall. We may regard the indigestion which must almost certainly have followed upon indulgence in such a dish as a mild form of retribution for the tortures which some of those present had formerly inflicted upon the poor rams. In the early seventeenth century Shrove Tuesday was also marked by a barbarous usage. On that day no work was done after 8 a.m., and, as in other parts of England, some live bird was tormented. The usual practice was for the College cook to get hold of a young crow and fasten it with a pancake to a door, when the boys would then worry it to death. [SN: THE FIRST DAME] Newborough, owing to failing health, resigned his headmastership in 1711 and died the following year. He was succeeded by Dr. Snape, a self-made man, whose mother and afterwards his sister kept the earliest recorded “Dames’” houses at Eton. On his resignation in 1720 the school had reached a total of 400 boys, though some alleged that one of these was a town boy whose name Snape had added to form a round sum. Under his successor, Dr. Henry Bland, the numbers further increased to 425, one of whom was a boy, always playing upon a cracked flute, who was to be known to posterity as Dr. Arne. After the South Sea Bubble had wrought widespread ruin the school shrank again to 325. Bland only remained at Eton eight years. Sir Robert Walpole, who never forgot an Etonian schoolfellow, presented him with the Deanery of Durham, besides offering him a bishopric, which was declined. Dr. William George then became Headmaster. He was a very good classical scholar, and some iambics of his so charmed Pope Benedict XIV. that he declared that had the writer been a Catholic he would have made him a cardinal; as it was he had a cardinal’s cap placed upon the manuscript. Dr. George’s reign at Eton came to an end in 1743, when he was elected Provost of King’s. At this period a very curious state of affairs prevailed at Eton in regard to the appointment of the teaching staff. The Headmaster was free to choose his own assistants, whom he paid himself; but he received numerous fees and presents from each boy under him. On the other hand, the Lower Master--who maintained a sort of preparatory school, to which came boys of very tender age--was able to sell his assistant masterships, like waiterships at a restaurant, as he left the fees and presents to his assistants. This is shown by a quaint advertisement which appeared in the _London Evening Post_ of November 9, 1731:--