monitorial system would degrade the whole of our great public schools? But even if this exception were more generally the rule than it is, that would only prove the want of better monitorial supervision. The vices at which I have hinted a few pages back, as being the most pernicious and baneful to all concerned, are those which no masters are able to eradicate, and which no quantity of ushers would be numerous enough to prevent.

To arrest the spread of these evils, the personal and moral influence of the elder boys must be exerted. To increase this influence they must have power and position to make it effectual, yet not predominant enough to separate them from their schoolfellows. Under a really efficient monitorial system, no such house as the one I have described could exist; and for this sketch I have

had to draw on the memory of some old Harbeans, as my own recollections can supply no such dark reminiscences.

CHAPTER XV.

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT.

"Diseases, desperate grown,

By desperate appliance are relieved."

SHAKSPEARE.

"La protection des foibles est donc le seul usage lègitime du crédit et de l'autorité."-MASSILLON.

FOR some days there had been a great mystery in the house boys spoke to one another in whispers; our social atmosphere was heavy and oppressive, like that preceding a thunder-storm. The Sixth fellows had been closeted together day after day for hours; small unoffending little ones had been called in and examined, and had come out looking very red; but their blushes were those of ingenuous innocence: we felt that among them there could be no guile. Big, disagreeable, disreputable boys had also been sent for and ques

tioned, and came out looking sulky and angry: we hoped they had at length got caught in something.

Out of the house the affair was not mentioned, of course: if there was one thing we were more touchy about than another, it was the "honour of the house" in which we lived; and the worst bullied fag, the most unpopular companion, would not have mentioned a word to its discredit "out of the house" on any account. But we canvassed the matter in our own minds. "Conscience doth

make cowards of us all," and a dread suspicion crossed me, that perhaps these meetings and examinations might have reference to my humble fagship-to burnt toast and spoiled coffee.

The wags amongst us went about relating wonderful stories which could not possibly be true, or giving minute details of conversations they could never have heard. At one time it was circulated as a real fact, that fagging was to be put an end to for ever; at which thoughtless boys threw up their straw hats and rejoiced, while the cogitations of those wise in their generation, turned towards their one or two great

enemies, and their two or three protecting Sixthform fellows, and they hoped it might not be true. Finally the suspense was terminated by our being gravely informed one evening by the head of the house, that there was to be a "halllicking" at half past eight o'clock. He looked serious and anxious as he made this official announcement, and added, after consulting for a moment with his coadjutors, that the fags were all to be present, and that he hoped that the rest of the house would attend upon the occasion.

It was during my first half at Harby, and I was very much alarmed, and somewhat apprehensive. Who was the culprit remained a mystery: no one knew anything about the matter; nothing had been hinted as to what offender was to be done justice upon, or what was the offence. I may truly state, that the quantity of peccadilloes repented of in the brief two hours that elapsed between the time of making the announcement and the execution of the sentence was incalculable: at least threefourths of the fags in the house believed that they were to be the victims, and were trying

very hard to remember which of their various delinquencies were likely to be visited upon them.

The bell rang for calling over at half-past eight, and we answered to our names in most dismal tones. This usual ceremony was at length over, and we noticed that one name had not been answered to at all. The half-dozen members of the Sixth form stood silent in a knot, looking grave and anxious. At length the head of the house comes forward. "Shut the door," says he, "and that window too," he adds.

Then, amidst a silence in which you might have heard a pin drop, he thus addresses his schoolfellows:

"I am deeply grieved to find myself in the position in which I stand to-night-that of head of a house which has disgraced itself, and of a body of gentlemen who have ceased to be such. The stain on the character of this house-for it will be a stain, however much you may succeed in concealing it from the rest of the school-has caused all of us the deepest sorrow and shame.

"For nearly a week we have been engaged in