"'_Statutum est_' also, that 'Nobody shall wear the hair long or in curls (_in capillitio modus est, nec concinnos, aut comam nimis promissam alant_). Now, Sir, my son PETERLOO has been favoured by Nature with a particularly curly head of hair. I wish to ask you, Do you think that this misfortune, which it is evident can be from no fault of his own, will shut him out from all the privileges of the University? It is a momentous question for a father to make, and one which may interest the bosom friend of the present Chancellor--I mean MR.--I beg his pardon, DR. DISRAELI. One thing is plain: that the advertisements of 'Do you want luxurious hair?' can be of no use in Oxford, and that bears'-grease must be at a discount. And if my son PETERLOO should fail to observe any of the above Statutes touching his personal appearance, or the giving himself airs, he will, when he is a graduate, have to pay 6_s._ 8_d._ for each offence (_poena_ 6_s._ _et_ 8_d._ _plectatur, toties quoties_), and while he is an undergraduate he will, for such offences, have to suffer corporal punishment (_poena corporali_). Good gracious, _Mr. Punch_, I have read that the great NEWTON was horsed when he was a Cambridge undergraduate; but I thought that such a degrading custom was either confined to that University, or had passed away with the dark ages, and oil-lamps, and Protection, and all that sort of thing. Does not Oxford--the Mother of Science, and (for what I know) the Aunt of Literature, and the Grandmother of the Arts--does not Oxford, I repeat, keep up with the progressive enlightenment of the age? I almost repent that I have entered PETERLOO there (at St. Vitus' College), and I tremble to think of the effect that corporal punishment, will have on him when he is become a _man_. As an Eton boy it (perhaps) does him good; but as a man! I thought such disgrace only attached to the army. For, _of course_, the corporal punishment cannot be inflicted _only_ in the Statutes.
[Illustration: NOBODY SHALL WEAR THE HAIR LONG OR IN CURLS.]
"I then find that it is '_Statutum est_,' that if any one should happen to introduce a new and unwonted style of dress, that the Vice-Chancellor and the Heads of the Colleges and Halls shall thereupon hold deliberation and give their opinion; and that the Vice-Chancellor shall then forbid the cutters-out and the tailors, making these kind of garments (_Deinde, Vice-Cancellarius scissoribus sive sartoribus vestiariis hujusmodi vestes conficiendi potestate interdicat_); and that the Heads shall prohibit their scholars from wearing them; but that if the young men, with a morbid pertinacity (_morbi pertinacia_), persist in clothing themselves in the aforesaid garments, the Vice-Chancellor shall, after three monitions, expel them.