"'_Statutum est_' also, that 'Nobody shall wear the hair long or in
curls (_in capillitio modus est, nec concinnos, aut comam nimis
promissam alant_). Now, Sir, my son PETERLOO has been favoured by Nature
with a particularly curly head of hair. I wish to ask you, Do you think
that this misfortune, which it is evident can be from no fault of his
own, will shut him out from all the privileges of the University? It is
a momentous question for a father to make, and one which may interest
the bosom friend of the present Chancellor--I mean MR.--I beg his
pardon, DR. DISRAELI. One thing is plain: that the advertisements of 'Do
you want luxurious hair?' can be of no use in Oxford, and that
bears'-grease must be at a discount. And if my son PETERLOO should fail
to observe any of the above Statutes touching his personal appearance,
or the giving himself airs, he will, when he is a graduate, have to pay
6_s._ 8_d._ for each offence (_poena_ 6_s._ _et_ 8_d._ _plectatur,
toties quoties_), and while he is an undergraduate he will, for such
offences, have to suffer corporal punishment (_poena corporali_). Good
gracious, _Mr. Punch_, I have read that the great NEWTON was horsed when
he was a Cambridge undergraduate; but I thought that such a degrading
custom was either confined to that University, or had passed away with
the dark ages, and oil-lamps, and Protection, and all that sort of
thing. Does not Oxford--the Mother of Science, and (for what I know) the
Aunt of Literature, and the Grandmother of the Arts--does not Oxford, I
repeat, keep up with the progressive enlightenment of the age? I almost
repent that I have entered PETERLOO there (at St. Vitus' College), and I
tremble to think of the effect that corporal punishment, will have on
him when he is become a _man_. As an Eton boy it (perhaps) does him
good; but as a man! I thought such disgrace only attached to the army.
For, _of course_, the corporal punishment cannot be inflicted _only_ in
the Statutes.
[Illustration: NOBODY SHALL WEAR THE HAIR LONG OR IN CURLS.]
"I then find that it is '_Statutum est_,' that if any one should happen
to introduce a new and unwonted style of dress, that the Vice-Chancellor
and the Heads of the Colleges and Halls shall thereupon hold
deliberation and give their opinion; and that the Vice-Chancellor shall
then forbid the cutters-out and the tailors, making these kind of
garments (_Deinde, Vice-Cancellarius scissoribus sive sartoribus
vestiariis hujusmodi vestes conficiendi potestate interdicat_); and that
the Heads shall prohibit their scholars from wearing them; but that if
the young men, with a morbid pertinacity (_morbi pertinacia_), persist
in clothing themselves in the aforesaid garments, the Vice-Chancellor
shall, after three monitions, expel them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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