_College Salting and Tucking of Freshmen_ (No. 17. p. 261., No. 19.
p. 306.).--A circumstantial account of the tucking of freshmen, as
practised in Exeter College, oxford, in 1636, is given in Mr. Martyn's
_Life of the First Lord Shaftesbury_, vol. i. p. 42.
"On a particular day, the senior under-graduates, in the
evening, called the freshmen to the fire, and made them hold
out their chins; whilst one of the seniors, with the nail of
his thumb (which was left long for that purpose), grated off
all the skin from the lip to the chin, and then obliged him to
drink a beer-glass of water and salt."
Lord Shaftesbury was a freshman at Exeter in 1636; and the story told
by his biographer is, that he organised a resistance among his fellow
freshmen to the practice, and that a row took place in the college
hall, which led to the interference of the master, Dr. Prideaux, and
to the abolition of the practice in Exeter College. The custom is
there said to have been of great antiquity in the college.
The authority cited by Mr. Martyn for the story is a Mr. Stringer, who
was a confidential friend of Lord Shaftesbury's, and made collections
for a Life of him; and it probably comes from Lord Shaftesbury
himself.