CHAPTER XIX 



SPORT AT THE 'VARSITIES 



Nowhere have the changed conditions of sport since the 

 early Victorian era been more marked than at the 

 Universities. There must be many old 'Varsity men who 

 can remember the time when badger-drawing, rat-killing, 

 dog-fighting, surreptitious excursions to prize-fights, and 

 the like were the staple amusements of our academic youth. 

 Cricket was then a game only played by a few enthusiasts ; 

 football was but a pastime for schoolboys, athletics were 

 unknown, and not one man in ten cared for rowing. Those 

 who could afford it hunted ; but to the great bulk of under- 

 graduates such amusement was beyond their means, and if 

 their tastes were sporting, they could only gratify them by 

 those recreations of the " Fancy " which I have named. 

 Billiards were taboo. It is not long since I met an old 

 Devonshire parson who told me that in his day at 

 Cambridge anyone who yearned for a game of billiards had 

 to sneak over to Chesterton for it, at the risk of being 

 proctorised. 



If there are any Dons nowadays who read Peter Priggins 

 or The Adventures of Mr Verdant Green, they must shudder 

 to think that such coarse amusements as are there described 

 formed part of the life of the academic youth of England. 

 But the coarseness was not apparent to those who indulged 

 in them, and there were diversions which were harmless 

 enough, though they would hardly commend themselves to 

 the Dons or the undergraduates of the present day. 



For example, a Cambridge friend of Charles Kingsley, 

 after describing their fishing excursions and occasional 

 rides to hounds, proceeds : — 



" Besides these expeditions, we made others on horseback, 



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