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That highly aristocratic journal, the St. James Gazette, contained in a late number a detailed account of an exceedingly interesting performance on the part of the students of the University of Edinburgh, an account which we reproduce in another column. What morals the English papers have been drawing from these proceedings, which, we believe, have become customary from long usage and sanctioned by venerable tradition, we are uninformed. To Americans certainly this report will naturally suggest unamiable reflections and perhaps unavoidably will prompt odious comparisons. Beside such a scene as this, hazing, with all its attendant horrors, dwindles into insignificance, We venture to assert that nowhere in America has such a brutal and disgraceful performance ever taken place at any of our colleges. The tu-quoque argument will not relieve Americans from any of the blame for the evils of hazing, but it certainly can tend to reduce the magnitude of our offences in the eyes of a stern and unsympathizing public to listen to such accounts as this of the rowdyism of English and Scotch students. Pelting professors with peas and rushing them through a melee is certainly not characteristic of American students, neither is uproarious applause of a prayer nor interrupting academical ceremonies with cat-calls and mock psalm tunes. The American student does not wish to be pharisaical, but he humbly pleads for a milder judgment upon his harmless peccadilloes, in view of the more reprehensible transgressions of his consins across the sea.

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