In 1879, the writer’s first year at Eton, an idea prevailed that if we could run there and back without missing Absence, such a visit was not forbidden. Be this as it may, the writer, with a friend, did run there and back, the only unpleasant consequence being the loss of some pocket-money. In the following year, besides the notice prohibiting boys from being on the Windsor bank of the river during the races (which, nevertheless, did not prevent a considerable number from crossing over), drastic measures were taken by the authorities to prevent Etonians from going there on foot, which, owing to the vigilance of masters in Windsor, had to be abandoned altogether. It was no unheard-of thing for a boy in those days to run to Ascot races and get back in time for Absence--then at six. This, of course, was contrived by getting lifts on the way, and though some were caught and punished, quite a number indulged in what was to them an exciting adventure. Two or three got to the races by assuming a disguise, whilst others were picked up and hidden in carriages and traps by obliging elder brothers or old Etonians. One boy--Bathurst by name--according to current report, so tickled young Lady Savernake by his impersonation of a nigger-minstrel that she gave him a £5 piece. [SN: PIG FAIR] In Eton itself up to the ’thirties of the last century, every Ash Wednesday there was held a Pig Fair, just outside Upper School; this, of course, led to great disorder--the boys delighting in letting the pigs loose, and chasing them in all directions. At the last of these Fairs in Keate’s time, a boy actually rode a pig from the gate of Weston’s Yard to the Christopher, at the identical moment when Keate came out of Keate’s Lane on the way to chapel, his gown flying in the wind. Keate took little notice of this at the time, merely remarking, “Pigs will squeak, and boys will laugh; don’t do it again.” When Gladstone was a boy at Eton, considerable brutality existed in connection with the Fair. The boys, according to old custom, hustling the drovers and then cutting off the tails of the pigs. Gladstone boldly denounced such cruelty, and gave considerable offence by declaring that the boys who were foremost in this kind of butchery were the first to quake at the consequences of detection. He dared them, if they were proud of their work, to sport the trophies of it in their hats. On the following Ash Wednesday he found three newly amputated pig-tails hung in a bunch on his door, with a paper inscribed: “Quisquis amat porcos, porcis amabitur illis; Cauda sit exemplum ter repetita tibi.” Underneath these lines the future Prime Minister wrote a challenge to the pig-torturers, inviting them to come forward and take a receipt for their offering, which he would mark “in good round hand upon your faces.” The pig-baiting, however, continued till Dr. Hawtrey did away with the Fair.