The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the great public schools, are the hotbeds of fashionable Slang. Growing boys and high-spirited young fellows detest restraint of all kinds, and prefer making a dash at life in a Slang phraseology of their own to all the set forms and syntactical rules of _Alma Mater_. Many of the most expressive words in a common chit-chat, or free-and-easy conversation, are old university vulgarisms. "Cut," in the sense of dropping an acquaintance, was originally a Cambridge form of speech; and "hoax," to deceive or ridicule, we are informed by Grose, was many years since an Oxford term. Among the words that fast society has borrowed from our great scholastic--not establishments (they are sacred to linendrapery and "gentlemanly assistants")--institutions, is found "crib," a house or apartments; "dead men," empty wine bottles; "drawing teeth,"[47] wrenching off knockers,--an obsolete amusement; "fizzing," first-rate, or splendid; "governor," or "relieving-officer," the general term for a male parent; "plucked," defeated or turned back, now altered to "plough;" "quiz," to scrutinize, or a prying old fellow; and "row," a noisy disturbance. The Slang words in use at Oxford and Cambridge would alone fill a volume. As examples let us take "scout," which at Oxford refers to an undergraduate's valet, whilst the same menial at Cambridge is termed a "gyp,"--popularly derived by the Cantabs from the Greek, _gyps_, a vulture; "skull," the head, or master, of a college; "battles," the Oxford term for rations, changed at Cambridge into "commons." The term "dickey," a half-shirt, it is said, originated with the students of Trinity College, Dublin, who at first styled it a "tommy," from the Greek _tomê_, a section,--the change from "tommy" to "dickey" requires no explanation. "Crib," a literal translation, is now universal; "grind" refers to "working up" for an examination, also to a walk or "constitutional;" "Hivite" is a student of St. Begh's (St. Bee's) College, Cumberland; to "japan," in this Slang speech, is to ordain; "mortar board" is a square college cap; "sim," a student of a Methodistical turn--in allusion to the Rev. Charles Simeon; "sloggers," at Cambridge, refers to the second division of race-boats, known at Oxford as "torpids;" "sport" is to show or exhibit; "trotter" is the jocose term for a tailor's man who goes round for orders; and "tufts" are privileged students who dine with the "dons," and are distinguished by golden tufts, or tassels, in their caps. Hence we get the world-wide Slang term "tuft-hunter," one whose pride it is to be acquainted with scions of the nobility--a sycophantic race unfortunately not confined to any particular place or climate, nor peculiar to any age or either sex. There are many terms in use at Oxford not known at Cambridge; and such Slang names as "coach," "gulf," "harry-soph," "poker," or "post-mortem," common enough at Cambridge, are seldom or never heard at the great sister University. For numerous other examples of college Slang the reader is referred to the Dictionary.