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 exactly what is required by the more delicate youth of the present day; and perhaps it was less carefully adapted to the general organization of the human stomach and palate than was really desirable.” With more downright emphasis the Reverend John Mitchell affirms of the later days of the Yale Commons, that the food “was absolutely destructive of health. I know it to have ruined permanently the health of some, and I have not the least doubt of its having occasioned, in certain instances, which I could specify, incurable debility and premature death.”

Nor can it be urged that the policy of semi-starvation was, in normal times, a necessity. Though not supplied with modern delicacies, the markets of the eighteenth century at any rate afforded a considerable choice of good eatables. At the installation of President Leverett in 1708 the dinner included meat-pies, fowls, beef, pork, turkeys (with cranberry sauce!), onions, parsnips, eggs, tongues, cheese, and mutton, accompanied by “green wine,” port, “Maderah,”’ and (of course) “bear.” The Commencement dinner five years before had also items of carrots, cherries, oranges, apples, peas, chicken, corn, geese, and bacon. If the Corporation had possessed the