CORRESPONDENCE
A LETTER FROM CAMBRIDGE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—To deal first, like a good Englishman, with the weather, this last term has probably been the best for twenty years. Even May Week was consistently warm and one did not endure the traditional irony of shivering in a mackintosh at Ditton Corner and being offered an ice as sustenance. Incidentally, the motor-car is slowly changing (or, as some -would say, spoiling) the atmosphere of the May Races. Not many years ago one went down to Ditton by river as a matter of course ; and very early one had to start if one wished to secure a good position. In the Paddock there would be a number of old-fashioned dignitaries in carriages and a few undignified plutocrats in motor-cars. But now the stream of boats and punts gets thinner every year and the line of cars in the Paddock and in the meadows grows longer and longer.
When the day's racing is over, there is hardly any " scrum " on the river at all and the ancient sport of rudder-snatching is barely known to the modern generation. Instead, there is a test of skilful motor-driving on the roads which lead back from Chesterton and Ditton—and an occasional bump.
For undergraduates the " motor-vehicle " question has at length been settled—at any rate for a time. Briefly, those in slam pupillari may not drive their cars in the morning or in the late evening, and no freshman may drive a car at all. These restrictions were passed by surprisingly large majorities and a special " motor-proctor " is to be appointed to assist in their enforcement. This creation of a new office is the least satisfactory feature of the senate's decisim.
At the end of term the University was shocked by the death at a comparatively early age of the Master of Magdalene. Many obituaries of him have been written, but only residents in Cambridge know with how fine a zest he had played his part in College and University life in the last few years. Not only had he been extremely active, but he had thoroughly enjoyed his activity, and the prospect of his Vice-Chan- cellorship in 1926 was as pleasing to himself as to the Univer- Eity. Dis aliter visum. In literary history the name of Arthur Benson will no doubt be primarily associated with From a College Window and similar books of essays. But as autobiography these essays were woefully incomplete.' The sympathetic reader found in them a " gentle charm," a " quiet humour " ; the harsher kind of critic growled about their " sugary sentimentality." Yet none of these qualities were truly applied to Arthur Benson. Humour he had in abundance, but it was frank, even boisterous, rather than quiet ; charm he had indeed, but it was a charm conveyed in an atmosphere of good fellowship, good wine, and good anecdote ; of sentimentality he showed no trace—there was probably no shrewder man of business in the University., There is much talk of building in the Colleges : King's . have approved their architect's Plans and Pembroke have devised a scheme to camoufler the architectural tragedy of 1875, when the old hall was demolished. Nowadays we are. all mighty anxious to obliterate Waterhouse. Fifty years' hence there will no doubt be stalwarts who will fight for his preservation as people are ready to-day to defend the Essex building in the Great Court of Trinity.—I am, Sir, &c., YOUR CAMBRIDGE CORRESPONDENT.
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