of  college  musicians, — the  first  thing  on  the  programme
is   the  "opening   load,"   which   is    often    "necessarily
omitted"  for  some  assigned  reason,  such  as,  "  on  account
of  the  lateness  of   the   hour   the  load   could   not   be
opened,"  or  "because  the  faculty  ordered  it  unloaded."
Then  come  two  or  three  plays,  between  which  are  sand
wiched  a  comic  oration  and  a  comic  poem,  both  relating
to  college  life,  and  perhaps  a  display  of  negro  minstrelsy
ends  up  the  show. The  names  of  the  committee-men. figure  upon  the  first  page  of  the  programme,  which,  for
the  rest,  is  expressed  in  the  form  of  a  burlesque,  as
absurd  and  ludicrous  as  the  ingenuity  and  wit  of  the
committee  can  devise. Thus  we  have  the  "  sanguino-
lently  and  demoniacally  loquacious  pantomimic  repre
sentation"  ;  "  the  spamodically  pharmaceutical  tragedy"  ;
the  "mysterious,  Milesian,  medieval,  moral-play";  the
"savory,  side-splitting  farce" ;   and  so  on. The  min
strels,  likewise,  are  "  tenebriously  umbrageous  Stygio-
Ethiopian,"   or    "  dulcifluously   incanting    ingrescent,"
ones,    or    "American    citizens    of    (corked)    African
descent."     The  "oration,"  or  "sermon,"  or  "address,"
is  about  "  the  ignitions  combustibility  of  all  corroso-in-
flammable    matter,"    or  "analytical  mathematics  as    a
means    of    religious    instruction."      The    poem    is    an
"  epic-ac  ode,"  or  a  "  dorggerel,"  or  a  "jocular,  jingling
jumble,  joining  jovial  jests  in  juxtaposition  with  jubilant
jokes,"  or  is  made  up  of   "'classical  (l)odes."      The
music  is  by  the  "'first  nine'  Yale  muses,"  or  the  ".Med
dlesome  society,"  or  the  "  clulce  strainers,"  or  the  "  Yale
tooters."      The   "finale"  is  omitted  because   a  certain
"  old  clo'  "  man  "  has  stolen  the  '  close'  of  the  perform
ance,"  or  is  "  to  be  had  at  Moriarty's  [a  well  known  ale
seller's]  after  the  show  is  concluded."     "  Gentlemen  are
requested  to  wipe  their  boots  before  entering  the   hall,
and  are  particularly  requested  not  to  spit  on  the  backs


THE  STUDENT  LIFE. 269

of  those  who  sit  in  front  of  them."  "  Freshmen  accom
panied  by  their  mothers  or  nurses,  $i. 