Vacation.

The number of men who prefer to stay in Cambridge rather than "go down for the holidays," as our English undergraduate cousins say, is growing larger every year. This year about an even hundred spent the vacation at college, and some of the occurrences of the period may interest the men who went home for their recess.

At Memorial, about half the waiters were retained, and the students who continued to dine there were allowed to suit their own preferences in choosing tables, as there was no regular assignment of seats. On Christmas day the men who happened in at Memorial were treated to an excellent dinner; one of the best, in fact, that the hall has ever served. In the gymnasium about fifty men exercised every afternoon, under the supervision of Mr. Lathrop, and the absence of the regular crews made the use of the rowing machines popular. A diversion was created on last Tuesday night by the attempt of two men to break into a room in the north entry of Hollis. The burglars were frightened away, however, by the occupants of the room before they succeeded in effecting an entrance. As this occurrence has been reported to the police it is safe to predict that nothing farther will be heard from it.

As may be readily believed, a large proportion of the men stayed at college for the purpose of grinding for the semis, hence the library was well attended, and the bright windows in many of the halls relieved what would otherwise have been the funereal darkness of the yard, for the economical authorities effected a saving of 97 cents by leaving the yard lamps unlighted during the vacation.

All in all, life at college during Christmastide is far from unenjoyable, for if a Harvard student cannot be contented when he is annoyed by neither chapel, lectures, nor the irrepressible summons boy, he must indeed be hard to suit.