rods, many dressed in orthodox scarlet. At the present day the number of hunting men can be counted on the fingers of both hands. The livery stables could probably tell a sad tale of the change in this respect, and Charlie Symonds and Joe Tollit have both had to deplore the evanescent character of their fortunes. Again, it is, of course, a democratic age, and one can scarcely expect that the same attention should be paid to the externals of dress as heretofore. But it is only within recent times that the costumes of the cricket ground and the river have been thought sufficient for the High Street. Not very long ago a Proctor would have thought himself justified in arresting and fining an undergraduate so dressed at five o'clock in the afternoon. Now youths in unseemly arrangements of dirty flannels and bare legs will not only elbow their unconcerned way through the most crowded parts of the town, but will recline cheek by jowl with academic dignitaries on the sofas of the Union. Men are more careless in these matters than they used to be, as might be expected from an era which has built the hideous lodgings of King Edward Street and has tolerated a tramway in the most beautiful thoroughfare in Europe. Apart from such purely external characteristics, it would appear that the average undergraduate has grown more practical, more unimaginative, more calculating, more shrewd. is a constant complaint amongst

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Balliol. It has set the example of estimating success by first classes. It has preached to the undergraduate a lesson of "getting on " as the highest goal for his ambition, and its definition of "getting on " has steadily been the acquisition of material honours. Other colleges have had to follow suit, mainly because the presence or absence of undergraduates within their walls is vital to their existence at a time when landed property has so fallen in value. From an educational point of view, however, it is an ignoble race, and he who wins is in many respects the chief loser. Rare, indeed, is the undergraduate who has sufficient warmth of heart or generosity of temperament to let himself dream. One would think that if there was any place in the world in which it would be right to dream, it would be here, among the inexhaustible memories inspired by the noblest and most romantic of English cities. But it does not pay to dream; and the fierce eagerness of the specialists has rendered impossible the old Platonic culture, where beautiful sights and beautiful sounds could win the soul of the student to that beauty which is but another name for the true and the good.

Perhaps these are only the reflections of one who is unhappy enough to be a reactionary, and who seeks to shelter himself beneath Dr. Newman's plea that "it is Oxford's very place to be old-fashioned." Certainly, to be oldfashioned is the last thing a young academic reformer would aim at in the present day in him the chief effort is to be abreast of all the quickly-changing phases of modern society, to live up, as it is said, to the times. But it would be foolish to ignore the many good elements which can be found in the composition of the present undergraduate. Never perhaps in the whole course of his history did he do so much hard work of all the charges brought against him by his pastors and masters, nothing is so unfair as to reproach him with idleness. He is too

practical to be idle; and the same spirit which makes him demand readymoney prices of his bootmaker or his tailor, makes him also very keen to secure the best teaching and the most "paying" method of getting up his work. He does not much believe in his teachers, it is true, and perhaps he is not far wrong. But he expects everything to be done for him by the authorities he desires lectures on every portion of his work, just as he requires all his wine to be furnished at cost price out of college stores. And he is a very fair judge of both the intellectual and the material article. Even in his clubs he is not going to pay a shilling more for his dinner than he ought to pay; and the result is that his clubs are extremely well-managed, and on the whole economical. So, too, he rates his college according to the same standard as his own institutions. If they serve his interests (as he understands them), well and good: if not, he will go elsewhere. He is thoroughly independent, thoroughly practical, and perhaps it may be added, thoroughly narrow in both his judgments and his manner of life. It is not for nothing that Science has established her hideous palaces in the Parks.

Like the general society of Oxford, society among the undergraduates tends also to become more cosmopolitan, or rather more metropolitan. If the married Fellow has now to unlearn his usual talk about his pupils and the schools, and to learn how to smoke a cigarette at dessert, so too the undergraduate must have his theatre and see the fashionable plays, without the necessity of running up to town. Mr. Stedman and his contributors have many allusions to the theatre, which they rightly assume to have been one of the most notable contributions of the Master of Balliol to the distractions of modern Oxford. In some respects the influence of the theatre has been undoubtedly good. It has given men something better than the doubtful attractions of the billiard-room and the certain vulgarities of the music-hall. But

it is early as yet to estimate all the results, and only those who know most about this department of University life ought to venture upon an opinion. The possible dangers are obvious, not as some College authorities have declared, the waste of time, but rather the growth of a juvenile Bohemianism. The story was prevalent in Oxford a short time ago that a prominent writer on the Bohemian press of London was entertained in one of the colleges, and given the privilege of witnessing a Greek play. So easy is it to combine classical tastes with the instincts of the Strand. And perhaps when undergraduates recite on a public stage and talk of their acquaintance with green-rooms, it is not unreasonable to feel uneasy. Still, such rumours may be only the inventions of those who for whatever cause dislike the stage; and at all events there is a wide difference between the institution of a theatre and the existence of an amateur dramatic club. Oxford has both, and such evils as may exist are apparently more connected with the latter than with the former. The subject is not an easy one to discuss for any one who is imperfectly acquainted with the details of the theatrical movement. It is sufficient for an observer to note how striking is the general tendency to enlarge the borders, as it were, of the University, and to make Oxford a suburb of London.

For this is the most general tendency, which serves to explain alike the intellectual and the social changes which Oxford has undergone and is undergoing. It springs from an honourable and well-intentioned desire to make the University national, to make it popular, "to make it go down," according to the conventional phrase, with every section and interest in England. Thus science is encouraged and dissent is welcomed, and there is an endless multiplication of schools and examiners to keep pace with the endless multiplicity of contemporary

studies. Oxford strains her ears to catch the echoes of the outside worldand for her the outside world is London. There is much in such a centripetal tendency which has borne good fruit. It has relieved Oxford of some of its priggishness and pedagogism: that which used to be called donnishness is now wellnigh a tradition of the past. But for the same reason, the peculiar essence of the old Oxford life has evaporated. There is no special Oxford spirit: it has vanished into thin air. The newer atmosphere has certain bracing qualities: it breathes a larger tolerance and freedom from routine; but it has also filled the lungs with

something of the metropolitan fog. It is well sometimes to reflect that there was a time when Oxford did not boast of being emancipated and worldly. Then others might talk of her provincialism, but for herself, she did not desire to compete with the commercial centres, with London, and Birmingham, and Liverpool. She hugged her own chains, and dreamt her own dream. A foolish dream it may be, if judged by worldly canons, but not an ignoble one; for the visions which passed before her slumbering eyes were those of classical refinement and cloistered peace.

As one journeys in a south-westerly direction from Buenos Ayres towards the Andes, leaving behind the railways of advancing civilization and the flat, far-stretching pastures, here and there divided by wire fences and dotted with estancia houses, whose white walls can scarce be seen through the surrounding clumps of trees, one comes by slow stages and painful travelling to a country equally flat and far more desolate, where the soft grasses, meet for sheep and cattle, give way to the hard and unprofitable pampas that stretches its feathered heads on all sides to the horizon. Not a tree is in sight, and hardly a habitation, save an occasional squatter's hut with its mudbuilt walls and grass-thatched roof, around which stray, half-hidden in the tall grass, a few horses or cows, or a flock of ragged sheep. Only a few years ago and not even they would have been seen; for not far distant lay the great lake, the Laguna de los Indios, and near it were the toldos of Waikeleofu and his tribe. Poor Waikeleofu he led a pleasant life as cacique with some two hundred lances behind him. Fine it was to scour the plain, chasing the fleet deer or fleeter ostrich; or better still to sweep off in some night raid the cattle of a too-confiding settler. What if they did murder and pillage-were they not the true sons of the country, and who had a better right than they? But evil times and an ambitious commandante fell upon Waikeleofu. His toldos were surrounded and burnt, his men were massacred or taken prisoners, and he, with many others, was brought bound to Buenos Ayres, where he was exhibited to the curious at so much a head. It is not necessary to

relate here how the commandante found promotion and a rich wife in consequence, or how Waikeleofu shortly died, partly from rum, partly from a general disinclination to live in his altered surroundings. His faithful followers who survived him buried him with all due rites, and slaughtered a horse over his grave, that he might have something to ride when he arrived at his new destination.

Waikeleofu was gone, and his place knew him no more. Settlers came there and built their ranchos, and profited by his absence. The land had probably been sold in large tracts by the government to capitalists who considered it yet too distant to yield any immediate profit. The country still had its drawbacks: it was terribly far from any market, and although good pasture was fairly abundant, pumas were also abundant, and well pleased to carry off a sheep now and then, much preferring a diet of mutton to one of venison. Nevertheless, when one pays no rent it is not good to grumble over much (unless, of course, one is an Irish farmer); and the settlers in general, and Anselmo Alvarez in particular, were well content with the locality.

Like the others, Anselmo Alvarez was a mere squatter, settling on land which belonged to some city merchant who was probably ignorant even of the whereabouts of his property; but unlike the others, he had been possessed of a considerable amount of stock before bad years and heavy losses had driven him with the scanty remnant of his flocks to take refuge in what was practically no man's land. An old man he was, of a short but wiry build, with keen, greedy eyes, that seemed out of

place in his otherwise heavy and stupidlooking features. His neighbours disliked and rather feared him : his wife, Maria Mercedes, feared and worshipped him; and his niece, Juana Alvarez, knew not whether she hated or feared him most. He had a passion for trying to outwit his neighbours which had done much towards ruining him in his old neighbourhood: he had a passion for horse-racing, cards and rum, which had helped not a little to the same end; and he bore a passionate resentment against a certain Juan Romano, a former neighbour, who had had the bad taste to prosper where Anselmo had almost starved, and who had actually bought the land upon which he had originally settled.

News came that Juan Romano had been made alcalde of the old district. "Don Juan ! sneered Anselmo. "Look you, how rotten eggs come to the top of the water. Qué tipo!" and he spat on the floor. "I knew his father before him, a man without shame, a robber, and this is the son of his father. What more would you have?" And then he would glare at his niece, who had her reason for liking the Romano family, and who would put on an air of very ill-feigned indifference as she moved about her household duties.

When a girl is eighteen, and has a pretty face, it is good to have a lover; but it is better to choose one who is acceptable to her family, and Juana had been singularly unfortunate in the choice of hers. Pedro Romano was everything that could be desired in the point of outward appearance, and a very good fellow to boot; but then he was a Romano, and, as the old Anselmo would have added, the son of his father. It was not wonderful, then, that his visits to their old home had been hardly tolerated, and had finally ended in an explosion; after which Pedro was forbidden the house, and poor Juana had sobbed herself to sleep for many a night, having lost a lover and received a good beating in exchange.

No. 338.-VOL. LVII.

Pedro was not to be shaken off so easily. When the Alvarez family that year moved out westwards to the new territory, he also left the home of his father and, following them, took service with an Englishman who had bought and stocked a large tract of land in their neighbourhood. He was very young, Pedro, and had fallen in love with Juana with all the fervour of a first passion. He was proud of his conquest too, for she was the prettiest girl in all the country round. How could he forget her? Could he forget that evening when he first met her in the shearer's dance, a slight girl of sixteen in a fresh white frock with a red flower in her dark hair, so slight and fragile that he could scarce feel her weight as she clung to him, slowly turning in the never-ending habañeras? All that night he had danced with her alone, heedless of the grins and innuendoes of the others, mindful only of those downcast eyes, veiled with their long lashes, and the soft cheeks that flushed in answer to his whispered words. When the morning came, and el viejo, who had been gambling all night, had ridden off too drunk to remember that he was leaving his niece behind, Pedro saddled her horse and put her on it. And then-while he arranged the heavy folds of the poncho, to guard her against the chill morning air, was it she who bent down her head? He knew not how it happened, his arms had found their way round that slender waist, and hers around his neck: their lips had met in a long, lingering kiss, and his eyes had seen in those dark eyes of hers a fire they had never seen before. How could he give her up? Could he forget those stolen interviews-alas! so short and far between? No, he would get good wages from the Englishman, save his money and become rich; or perhaps the Englishman would give him a flock to take care of and a house on the land; and then and then Pedro swore by all the saints in the calendar, and by some that were not saints at all, that he would have Juana Alvarez to be his wife.

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