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to be done, and that, too, without any instructions from behind iron doors, these restless nests of discord can find no quiet until some mighty bargain is entered into for mutual support; and all this, oftentimes, when neither party has the remotest idea as to the persons they will be called upon to vote for. Now the nominations in such a case may be the best possible, or the worst possible; but whether they are the one or the other, or neither, it makes not the slightest difference with the principle involved in the case. The whole plan is an utter abomination, and any one who considers it without reference to his own emolument or that of his particular friends, cannot fail to see it so. By its working the decision is taken out of the hands where it truly and of right belongs, personal merit is thrown entirely out of the account, and the whole matter settled on the ground of Society interest alone, when one would naturally suppose that a candidate's brains ought to have quite as much influence in deciding the question as the pin which decorates his vest collar. In most instances, no doubt, Societies may, and for aught we know, do, put forward their best men; but that does not alter the case in the least. The simple fact is, that the whole operation is wrong from beginning to end, and the sooner such fiddle-faddle can be thrown aside the better.

Secret Societies must of necessity have a horribly mysterious way of doing everything, so their "conclaves" become wonderfully "nocturnal." We are not very devout believers in the old-granny maxim, that 'Early to bed and early to rise

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still we are inclined to believe that it is well enough for people to go to bed sometime before cock crowing, if consistent with their other duties. No one can think it particularly conducive to a man's well-being, to keep awake three, four, or five hours beyond his usual time once a week, especially when, as it often happens, the exercises of the evening are interspersed with various gastronomic, potatory and fumigatory processes. We have seen a dignified company regularly straggling into Morning Prayers together, directly from their hebdomadal gathering, looking dull and sleepy, and, as a matter of course, totally unfitted for the duties of the day. They had a perfect right to torture themselves by trying to sleep in chairs and on the floor all the latter portion of the night, merely for the sake of making a "show" in the morning; and so every Society has an undoubted right, so far as we are concerned, to conduct its own business to suit itself; and we assume no right to dictate what they shall or shall not do. But the Secret Society system has

become a constituent part of our student life, entering into the very structure of College society, and permeating the whole mass of College feeling; and as such, offers a legitimate subject of discussion to all those who have any interest whatever in College affairs.

Those seasons of refreshment yclept "convivial entertainments "ranging from a three cent "bust" on pea-nuts to a full-grown champagne supper with every man under the table-enter more or less into the habits of all these associations. They may, in most cases, be very harmless in their character, but in some they are certainly very dangerous. A supper at midnight, followed by a drunken spree, is not especially beneficial in its influence upon a young man's mind or morals. in College. These things are not common, it is true, still they are not by any means unknown. There are those here who will recollect seeing the members of a Society come into prayers in a body, the morning after initiation, with hardly a sober man among them; on which occasion one of the "initiated," instead of giving his Latin exercise to the Tutor at recitation, very innocently handed out a Bill of Fare with the Wine List wonderfully underscored. No man will pretend to uphold such things, nevertheless they exist here, and must be reckoned as one phase of our Secret Society experiences.

Some of these Societies are "made up" without giving any of the new-fledged the least inkling as to who their future associates are to be. This method of being bottled up, strikes us as most emphatically horrible. As well might musicians try to get up a concert by selecting players who are unknown to each other, and allowing each to tune his own fiddle to suit himself. They might fiddle together, no doubt, and might all play well enough, but we should expect precious little harmony in the result. Harmony in Society fiddling requires something more than that they should be packed into a Hall without previous practice, and then have the tune given out for the first time. They, no doubt, in most cases, think themselves a famously "homogeneous mass" after the operation, and no wonder. They are usually so thoroughly squeezed together by outside pressure that they can't help being "homogeneous."

There are some persons in this world who have such an overwhelming amount of curiosity that they can hardly live. If there is a room in town which they can not enter at will, that room becomes a sort of Blue Beard's Chamber, and they find no rest night or day until the ponderous key is applied, and the whole magical combination of two old settees, a table, three broken chairs and a cylinder coal-stove, bursts

with all its splendor upon their astonished vision! We do not say that any "Society Hall" is provided with just these articles and nothing else; but we very much doubt whether any one of them possesses anything more remarkable or mysterious, though if it happens to have a skeleton or two and an old coffin, or some similar apparatus, the effect is of course greatly heightened. We read the story of a poor man, in whose house a covered dish was placed, with the promise that all his wants should be supplied freely, so long as he would not lift the cover. But human curiosity never could stand that, so up went the cover, and out went the mouse, and the horrible secret was solved. He most likely felt relieved, and no doubt the mouse did; still, a little less knowledge on the subject would not have been any particular disadvantage to him, under the circumstances.

More aspiring youth sometimes fancy there is a stupendous amount of "honor" in wearing a certain pin or associating with a particular "crowd;" and, after the fearful ordeal of Initiation, such gentlemen put on a wondrously knowing look, seize their co-operators by the button at every opportunity, go into some dark corner to whisper for a moment, then glance around suspiciously, and thus with a mysterious air parade their solemn anxiety as though the fate of forty empires rested upon them, when in all human probability the difficulty simply is that some old nigger wants his pay for nailing down a two shilling carpet. Such men devote their time chiefly to the contemplation of their new found "honor," and become more "fussy" over it than a hen with one chicken. They wax patronizing, and rarely associate with anybody short of one of their "Society men" or a Professor. Well, this "honor" is a great thing, no doubt, and a very capital garment to hide under, especially when one's natural capacities render a "lion's skin" of some sort an indispensable covering.

But even when persons are not particularly pleased with the connection they have fallen into, they are in no great danger of saying much about it. When a man is "sold" he naturally becomes "mum." A certain old farmer once put a woodchuck into a bag, and tempted his curious neighbors to find out what the mysterious receptacle contained. So one after another thrust in his hand, but withdrew it rather hastily and declared he could not tell. Thus each received a bite, but kept marvelously "shady," in order that others might make the same trial. There are a great many "woodchucks" bagged up in this community, which men do not tell of, for the simple reason that they have "got their hand in," and wish others to do likewise. A year or two

ago one of the Societies in College elected an entire Class indiscriminately, and then told each innocent outsider that there was "just one vacancy left" and they wished him to join "on grounds of personal friendship." After initiation the "woodchuck" appeared in the shape of a big supper bill, unpaid room-rent ad libitum, and various other "incidental expenses."

Now if all these little juntos in College are such divinely appointed contrivances as we are urged to believe, let us have something from them of a higher order than petty ambition, foolish conceit and ungenerous feeling. If their existence is to become a blessing, let us have them built up into something nobler and more fitted to exert a healthy influence upon our College life. Let not the humbug of mystery, nor the humbug of silence, nor any senseless mummery, take the place of that positive power for good which such organizations ought to possess. If two-penny political scheming in College is a shameful sacrifice of time and decency, let us have something better in its place. If Society bonds tend to narrow down the sympathies of a man's soul, and to check his generous impulses towards others, away with them; men are selfish enough without any such help. If, in short, we are to have Secret Societies among us at all, as it seems destined we shall have, let us make them something more than mere machinery-something loftier than an embodiment of conceits and jealousies-something more real than mystery, and more efficient than dumbress; let us make them a living means of good, and a constant promoter of kindly feeling; let us fashion a system which shall be elevating and ennobling in its entire aim;—not a dark index of our College life, but worthy of ourselves and of those who shall come after us.

N. C. P.

A Connecticut Thanksgiving.

THANKSGIVING eve in the pleasant town of L-. Old hickory flaming up the chimney with a forge-like glow, that puts quite out the mildeyed waxen tapers. Just in from an up-and-down unending ride over the hills with their sharp faces crimped yet more by frost,-in from the cold and dark, from vain robes of buffalo and sad witticisms on the boreal air. Frozen fingers feel after the fire, eyes dwindle and sparkle as they greet the blaze. Once more around the family hearth, and in the hospitable chairs of the New England homestead! Cheery welcomings and kindly reunitings of the broken household! Once more at home and all again together!

How many scenes like this are acted out to-night in all these six old States! Simon, the Jehu of our lumbering stage, curses the long-lingering train. Remember, Simon, that the iron horse drags on to-night ten cars instead of two, filled every one with sad and merry souls, coming once more to youthful haunts, to sit again around the old Thanksgiving board. Think, Simon, how many hearts are warm and glad to-night, with buried love revived and frozen spirits flowing!

For the supperless, what more ecstatic than hot oysters! We spurn with all contempt the man whose taste can classify the mollusc as the lowest type of animal existence. With Reid, we take the innate dignity of the whole oyster tribe as a first principle in all our reasoning. The man that can deny it has many lessons yet to learn in gastronomic science as applied to dreary winter nights on the hill-tops of Connecticut The "argumentum ad hominem," will soon bring him to his senses. So, with a blessing on all bivalves, we settle quietly at midnight into soft arm-chairs, sitting late about the fire, telling old college jokes, and imaging around us De Quincey's Elysian retreat among the mountains, thick-carpeted, heavy-curtained, populous with books, all glowing with the cheerful fire and with the golden light of love.

Before all slumber, a pleasant and a sad reconnoitering. Pleasant glances and still footsteps into the old pantry and a mental enumeration of the thanksgiving pies. Sad and earnest peering through the panes, out into the starry darkness, in among the elms that circle the house across the way. It has a strange and dusky whiteness in the night, amid the trees, the light in one little upper window is out long ago, but the glittering stars watch over her, and I can only breathe a blessing on her dreaming. Give me the calm belief of those wandering

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