between the tiles and the beams of the roof. It is to us almost incomprehensible how vitality could have been kept up in the winter under such conditions. The cold must have been dreadful.

At four only of five earlier and smaller colleges was there any fire-place in the hall, and the barbaric braziers in which first charcoal and afterwards coke was burned, were actually the only heating apparatus known in the immense halls of Trinity and St. John's till within the last twenty years! The magnificent hall of Trinity actually retained till 1866 the brazier which had been in use for upwards of 160 years! The clumsy attempt to fight the bitter cold which was usual in our medieval churches and manor-houses, by strewing the stone floor with rushes, was carried out too in the college halls, and latterly, instead of rushes, sawdust was used, at least in Trinity. It was laid on the floor at the beginning of winter, and turned over with a rake as often as the upper surface became dirty. Finally, when warm weather set in, it was removed, the colour of charcoal!' Well might the late Professor Sedgwick, in commenting upon this practice, exclaim :-The dirt was sublime in former years!'

Yet in the earliest times a lavatory was provided in the college halls, and a towel of eight or nine yards long, which at Trinity as late as 1612 was hung on a hook-the refinement of hanging a towel on a roller does not appear to have been thought of. These towels were for use before dinner; at dinner the fellows of Christ's in 1575 were provided with table-napkins. If they wiped their fingers on the table-cloth they were fined a penny. The temptation must have been strong at times, for no forks were in use-not even the iron-pronged forks which some of us remember in hall in our young days. The oldest piece of furniture in the college halls were the stocks set up for the correction of refractory undergraduates who should have been guilty of the enormity of bathing in the Cam or other grave offence and scandal.

Of the amusements indulged in by the undergraduates at Cambridge in the early times we hear but little. The probability seems to be that they had to manage for themselves as best they could. Gradually the bowling-green, the butts for archery, and the tennis-courts were provided by several colleges. Tennis seems to have been the rage at Cambridge during the sixteenth century, and the tennis-courts became sources of revenue in the Elizabethan time. It is clear that by this time the old severity and rigour had become relaxed, the colleges had become richer, and in another hundred years the combination-rooms had become comfortable and almost luxurious before the seventeenth century closed. In Queen's College in 1693 there were actually flowers in the combination-room, and at Christ's College in 1716 a card-table was provided in the fellows' parlour.'

It may be said that the immense expansion of the University, as distinct from a mere aggregate of colleges, dates from the beginning of the eighteenth century. Up to that time the colleges had for four hundred years been steadily growing into privileged corporations, whose wealth and power had been too great for the Commonwealth, of which they were in idea only members. With the Georgian era the new movement began. When Bishop Moore's vast library was presented by George II. to the University, when the first stone of the Senate House was laid in 1722, when the University arranged for the reception of Dr. Woodward's fossils in 1735-these events marked the beginning of a new order of things. Whatever confusion may have existed in the minds of our grandfathers, who had a vague conviction that the University meant no more than the aggregate of the colleges, and a suspicion that what the University was the colleges made it-we, in our generation, have been assured that the colleges owed their existence to the sufferance of universities; or, if that be putting the case too strongly, that the colleges exist for the sake of the University. The new view has at any rate gained the approval of the Legislature; the University is in no danger of being predominated over by the colleges in the immediate future; the danger rather is lest the colleges should be starved or at least impoverished for the glorification of the University, the college-fellowships being shorn of their dignity and emoluments in order to ensure that the University officials shall become the exclusive holders of the richest prizes.

For good or evil we have entered upon a new career. The old Cambridge, which some of us knew in our youth, with its solemn ecclesiasticism, its quaint archaisms, its fantastic anomalies, its fascinating picturesqueness, its dear old barbaric unintelligible odds and ends that met us at every turn in street and chapel and hall—that old Cambridge is as dead as the Egypt of the Pharaohs. The new Cambridge, with its bustling syndics for ever on the move-its bewildering complexity of examinations-its 'sweet girl-graduates with their golden hair,' its delightful notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement,' its glorious wealth of collections and appliances and facilities for every kind of study and research, is alive with an exuberant vitality.

What form will the new life assume in the time that is coming? Will the Cambridge of six centuries hence be able to produce such a record of her past as that which she can boast of now? Among her alumni of the future will there arise again any such loyal and enlightened historians as these who have raised to themselves and their University so noble a monument ?

AUGUSTUS JESSOPP.

EUROPE IN THE PACIFIC.

DURING the last half-century our Australasian colonies have been merely spectators in the diplomatic drama of European politics; recent events, however, have caused a change in this respect, and now individually and collectively they are beginning to appear before the world as actors who will probably play important parts in the new political sphere of influence that is rapidly attracting the attention of Europe.-I mean the future policy of the Pacific. Imperial legislators have hitherto acted too much on their own responsibility in their diplomatic dealings with foreign Powers relating to Pacific affairs, and the public opinion of Australasia has not been sufficiently recognised in matters involving the annexation and giving up of islands in the southern hemisphere. True the advice of colonial statesmen and agents-general has frequently been asked, but it is not too much to say that, though generously given, it has seldom been seriously considered. Now it must be distinctly understood that the presence of possibly hostile Powers in the immediate vicinity of our Australasian colonies is fraught with much future danger to the colonists themselves, and, as they, and not the people inhabiting Great Britain and Ireland, are directly affected by the result of such diplomatic arrangements, their interest in questions of this kind demand first consideration. The half-heartedness so long displayed by the home authorities in Pacific policy will have to give place to more vigorous action, in which deeds must be substituted for words, and treaties for understandings.

Spain, France, and Holland long ago saw the advantage of possessing advanced posts in the Pacific-Spain and Holland for commercial reasons, France for naval purposes and the establishment of convict settlements. Germany and the United States have not been long in following suit, and slowly but surely the former Power is gaining a hold upon the trade in these latitudes and endeavouring to provide herself with coaling stations in the immediate vicinity of the maritime highways to Australia. Meanwhile, Great Britain is looking on, content with the passive possession of the Fijis and a small strip of New Guinea, while Australia and New Zealand, con

stitutionally powerless to prevent or permit annexation, are daily in danger of an increase in the number of foreign convicts already lodged and provided for in islands adjacent to their shores.

I propose to give here some information concerning the more important groups of islands that lie scattered over the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The area with which I am about to deal is so vast, and the islands in question so numerous, that some classification becomes necessary. Several methods of course suggest themselves, but the one adopted will well illustrate the object in view, and show at once not only the relation which these groups of islands bear to each other, but also their individual importance to European Powers, both diplomatically and commercially, for which purpose I have arranged the accompanying chart.

Recent diplomatic arrangements between this country and Germany have settled that for political purposes the Western Pacific shall mean that part of the Pacific Ocean lying between the 15th parallel of N. and the 30th parallel of S. latitude and between the 165th degree of longitude W. and the 130th E. of Greenwich. No corresponding division has hitherto been proposed for the Eastern Pacific, probably because the reasons that prompted the one did not appear to require the other. Now I would venture to suggest that it would be a matter of some convenience if the area of the Eastern Pacific were defined and made to correspond more nearly with that of the Western Pacific. To illustrate my meaning I have drawn on the chart annexed an arbitrary line traversing the 100th degree of longitude west of Greenwich, and would define the Eastern Pacific as that part of the Pacific Ocean lying between the 15th parallel of N. and the 30th parallel of S. latitude, and between the 165th degree of longitude W. and the 100th degree of longitude W. of Greenwich. This division excludes the Galapagos Islands, which belong to the Republic of Ecuador, but takes in Pitcairn Island and Easter Island.

Six months since important declarations were entered into between the Governments of Great Britain and the German Empire relating to a demarcation of the British and German spheres of influence in the Western Pacific and to reciprocal freedom of trade and commerce in the British and German possessions and protectorates' in those regions. For these purposes the area of the Western Pacific was revised as above, and a conventional line of demarcation 2 agreed upon starting from the north-east coast of New Guinea at a point near

The words 'possessions and protectorates in the Western Pacific' do not include the colonies which now have fully constituted governments and legisla

tures.

2 Should further surveys show that any islands now indicated on the British Admiralty charts lying on one side of the conventional line are in reality on the other side, the line is to be modified so that such islands shall appear on the same side of the line shown on the said charts.

Mitre Rock on the 8th parallel of S. latitude, which is the boundary between the British and German possessions on that coast, and following that parallel to point A,3 and thence continuing to points B, C, D, E, F, and G, as indicated in the accompanying chart. East, south-east, or south of this line Germany has engaged not to acquire land, accept protectorates, or interfere with the extension of British influence, and to give up any acquisitions of territory or protectorates already established in that part of the Western Pacific. Great Britain has entered into similar engagements concerning that part of the Western Pacific lying to the west, north-west, or north of the conventional line.

These engagements, however, do not apply to the Navigator Islands (Samoa), which are affected by treaties with Great Britain, Germany, and the United States; nor to the Friendly Islands (Tonga), also affected by treaties with Great Britain and Germany; nor to the island of Niué (Savage Island), which groups still continue to form a neutral region; nor, of course, are they applicable to any islands or places in the Western Pacific now under the sovereignty or protection of any other civilised Power.

Commercially both nations have agreed that the subjects of either State shall be free to resort to or settle in all the possessions or protectorates belonging to the other, as well as to acquire any kind of property and engage in any description of trade, agricultural or industrial undertakings, subject to the same conditions and laws, and enjoying the same religious freedom, protection, and privileges, as the subjects of the sovereign or protecting State. The ships belonging to both States are in all respects to enjoy reciprocal advantages as well as most-favoured-nation treatment; and merchandise, of whatever origin, imported by the subjects of either State, under whatever flag, is not to be liable to any other or higher duties than that imported by the subject of the other State or of any third Power.

It has been decided too that all disputed claims to land alleged to have been acquired by British subjects in a German possession or protectorate, and vice versa, prior to the proclamation of sovereignty or protectorate, shall be settled by a mixed commission; but any such claim may be decided by the local authority alone, provided the claimant to the land makes formal application to that effect. Convicts are not to be transported to, nor penal settlements

1 A, 8° S. lat., 154° long. E. of Greenwich; B, 7° 15′ S. lat., 155° 25′ E. long.; C, 7° 15′ S. lat., 155° 35′ E. long.; D, 7° 25′ S. lat., 156° 40′ E. long.; E, 8° 50′ S. lat., 159° 50′ E. long.; F, 6° N. lat., 173° 30′ E. long.; G, 15° N. lat., 173° 30′ E. long.

The point A is indicated on the British Admiralty chart 780, Pacific Ocean (south-west sheet); the points B, C, D, and E are indicated on the British Admiralty chart 214 (South Pacific, Solomon Islands), and the points F and G on the British Admiralty chart 781, Pacific Ocean (north-west sheet).