Theatre Parties.

Within the last few years the custom of attending the theatre in a body has been abandoned by our freshman classes. Eighty-five was the last class which paid full observance to the time-honored rite, though eighty-six was represented at the Boston Museum by forty of its members, early in the freshman year. Like all questions of grave import, the abolition of these student theatre parties was vigorously discussed before it was finally determined upon. It was, in truth, a case where "much might be said on both sides." Perhaps, after all, it was well to abandon the traditionary usage, but still, many a graduate can be found who will take delight in telling of the exploits on "theatre night," and how, it may be, he passed the latter part of that night as a "guest of the city."

But though Cambridge no longer echoes the songs of a returning theatre-party of freshmen, the custom is still kept up by student-kind in Australia.

The first night of Genevieve Ward, in "Henry VIII," at Melbourne, was what is called a "student night," and the gallery, usually given over to the possession of poorer play goers, was crammed with towering collars, white linen, and the stylishy cut clothes of hundreds who, upon less important occasions, sedately take their seats in the dress circles of the stalls. The medicals had scaled the heights for the purpose of making a demonstration, and upon Miss Ward's appearance they unrolled their banners of homage, in the shape of the black velvet flag with skull and crossbones of the "meds.," the crimson and gold ensign of the embryo "surveyors and engineers" and a long streamer with "Au Revoir" inscribed upon it. They further, in response to some who, on a previous occasion, had taken them to task, hung out two gigantic prescriptions, in which a liberal quantity of honey and syrup were suggested as medicine for the Telegraph and Argus, and a wholesale dose of arsenic and strychnine as a settler for the Age. They held their saturnalia between the acts, and observed a respectful silence during the progress of the play. When the curtain was going up, order was called by a rap or two with a gigantic thigh bone welded by the leader of the party.