Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/179

 Muses”—produced the consequences that might have been foreseen. A long series of “food rebellions” began, which grew more and more rampageous and uncontrollable, and ended only with the final downfall of the system, a consummation to which they contributed no small part.

These demonstrations sometimes took the form of what would be known to-day as a “ walk-out,” when the whole assemblage of diners, aggrieved at some particularly noisome dish, trooped from the hall. Sometimes they assumed the proportions of a long and obstinate “strike,” when students and Faculty were pitted against each other in a desperate deadlock, during which, on more than one occasion, the Faculty came within an ace of losing the fight.

The Great Butter Rebellion of 1766 is a case in point. Here the students had a cause of offence that smelt to Heaven as rank as that in “Hamlet.” Even the Corporation admitted that something was wrong, but insisted that the objectors should have confined themselves to complaints in form and manner prescribed. The objectors, on the other hand, having tried complaints without avail, did not stop there, but entered upon a course of “violent, illegal, and insulting proceedings” that “took more than a month to quell.” The tutors were hissed