The favorite beverage at fires was rum and molasses, commonly called black-strap, which is referred to in the following lines, commemorative of the engine company in its palmier days.

 “But oh! let black-strap’s sable god deplore
  Those engine-heroes so renowned of yore! 
  Gone is that spirit, which, in ancient time,
  Inspired more deeds than ever shone in rhyme! 
  Ye, who remember the superb array,
  The deafening cry, the engine’s ‘maddening play,’
  The broken windows, and the floating floor,
  Wherewith those masters of hydraulic lore
  Were wont to make us tremble as we gazed,
  Can tell how many a false alarm was raised,
  How many a room by their o’erflowings drenched,
  And how few fires by their assistance quenched?”
    Harvard Register, p. 235.

The habit of attending fires in Boston, as it had a tendency to draw the attention of the students from their college duties, was in part the cause of the dissolution of the company.  Their presence was always welcomed in the neighboring city, and although they often left their engine behind them on returning to Cambridge, it was usually sent out to them soon after.  The company would often parade through the streets of Cambridge in masquerade dresses, headed by a chaplain, presenting a most ludicrous appearance.  In passing through the College yard, it was the custom to throw water into any window that chanced to be open.  Their fellow-students, knowing when they were to appear, usually kept their windows closed; but the officers were not always so fortunate.  About the year 1822, having discharged water into the room of the College regent, thereby damaging a very valuable library of books, the government disbanded the company, and shortly after sold the engine to the then town of Cambridge, on condition that it should never be taken out of the place.  A few years ago it was again sold to some young men of West Cambridge, in whose hands it still remains.  One of the brakes of the engine, a relic of its former glory, was lately discovered in the cellar of one of the College buildings, and that perchance has by this time been used to kindle the element which it once assisted to extinguish.

ESQUIRE BEDELL.  In the University of Cambridge, Eng., three Esquire Bedells are appointed, whose office is to attend the Vice-Chancellor, whom they precede with their silver maces upon all public occasions.—­Cam.  Guide.

At the University of Oxford, the Esquire Bedells are three in number.  They walk before the Vice-Chancellor in processions, and carry golden staves as the insignia of their office.—­Guide to Oxford.

See BEADLE.

EVANGELICAL.  In student phrase, a religious, orthodox man, one who is sound in the doctrines of the Gospel, or one who is reading theology, is called an Evangelical.

He was a King’s College, London, man, an Evangelical.—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 265.