NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Some of our westen exchanges are so heavy that we use them for paper weights.

Vanderbilt has had two hundred yards of costly silk hangings woven at the celebrated establishment of Cheney Bros., for his new mansion in New York. The hand embroidery on this beautiful material cost nearly four thousand dollars. The silk draperies made by the same concern expressly for him are delicately interwoven with threads of pure gold and cost fifty dollars per yard.

The Boston Post, which usually keeps its weather eye open for all sorts of students' scrapes, and comments upon them somewhat severely, propounds the following conundrum: "What is the matter with the college boys? They act as though they were inspired. Princeton students have been on trial for misdemeanors; Cornell sophomores have been arrested for abducting freshmen, and Williams College students have made the services of the police necessary by very rowdyish demonstrations at North Adams. We hope the evil of "crankism" will not extend to our higher institutions of learning. It is better to be aesthetic."

An English trade journal gives the following account of a curious New Year's custom which is annually observed at Queen's College, Oxford: "After a dinner given to people indirectly connected with the college, the senior bursar delivers to each guest a needle furnished with a length of silk, with the injunction, 'Take this and be thrifty, and begin the new year with industry.' Contrary to a common belief, this is not the condition of a tenure, nor does any advantage accrue to the institution by its observance. There is nothing particular about the needles either. To be precise, they lock like 7s sharps, and the silk, either of crimson, blue or black, is only such silk as may be purchased anywhere. The use to which the articles are devoted is to wear them with the silk wound in a knot about them, as ornaments for the buttonhole or cap. Altogether, the custom has only the merit of quaintness, and, even if not more honored in the breach than the observance, might, without loss to anybody, be discontinued."