A more particular account of the Bully Club, and of the manner in which the students of Yale came to possess it, is given in the annexed extract.

“Many years ago, the farther back towards the Middle Ages the better, some students went out one evening to an inn at Dragon, as it was then called, now the populous and pretty village of Fair Haven, to regale themselves with an oyster supper, or for some other kind of recreation.  They there fell into an affray with the young men of the place, a hardy if not a hard set, who regarded their presence there, at their own favorite resort, as an intrusion.  The students proved too few for their adversaries.  They reported the matter at College, giving an aggravated account of it, and, being strongly reinforced, went out the next evening to renew the fight.  The oystermen and sailors were prepared for them.  A desperate conflict ensued, chiefly in the house, above stairs and below, into which the sons of science entered pell-mell.  Which came off the worse, I neither know nor care, believing defeat to be far less discreditable to either party, and especially to the students, than the fact of their engaging in such a brawl.  Where the matter itself is essentially disgraceful, success or failure is indifferent, as it regards the honor of the actors.  Among the Dragoners, a great bully of a fellow, who appeared to be their leader, wielded a huge club, formed from an oak limb, with a gnarled excrescence on the end, heavy enough to battle with an elephant.  A student remarkable for his strength in the arms and hands, griped the fellow so hard about the wrist that his fingers opened, and let the club fall.  It was seized, and brought off as a trophy.  Such is the history of the Bully Club.  It became the occasion of an annual election of a person to take charge of it, and to act as leader of the students in case of a quarrel between them, and others.  ‘Bully’ was the title of this chivalrous and high office.”—­Scenes and Characters in College, New Haven, 1847, pp. 215, 216.

BUMPTIOUS.  Conceited, forward, pushing.  An English Cantab’s expression.—­Bristed.

About nine, A.M., the new scholars are announced from the chapel gates.  On this occasion it is not etiquette for the candidates themselves to be in waiting,—­it looks too “bumptious.”—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 193.

BURIAL OF EUCLID.  “The custom of bestowing burial honors upon the ashes of Euclid with becoming demonstrations of respect has been handed down,” says the author of the Sketches of Yale College, “from time immemorial.”  The account proceeds as follows:—­“This book, the terror of the dilatory and unapt, having at length been completely mastered, the class, as their acquaintance with the Greek mathematician is about to close, assemble in their respective places of meeting, and prepare (secretly for fear of the Faculty) for the anniversary.  The necessary committee having been appointed, and