It appears that "hazing" is, after all, an exotic imported from the Parisian ateliers, where the students indulge in such ferocious tricks on new pupils that death has several times been the result. It was an occurrence of this kind that caused the atelier of Paul Delaroche to be closed when that master went to Italy, taking his pupil Gerome with him. The rising Russian painter, Basile Vereschagin, on entering the studio of Picot to learn the rudiments of his art, refused to be made the victim of the rough treatment to which it was proposed to subject him. This consisted in attaching the new-comer's head downwards to a ladder, and then blowing tobacco smoke up his nose - an invention truly worthy of "Fox's Book of Martyrs." Vereschagin, at this proposition, opened his blue eyes and, with a sweet, quiet smile, observed, "Gentlemen, I have come here to learn painting, and with no intention of being tied to any ladder upside-down, so I give you notice that I have a revolver in my pocket, with which I shall blow out the brains of the first man who molests me." And they were so convinced that he would that he ever after continued his studies in peace; but he was nicknamed "the Cossack." - Ex.