[In the following passage from the author's reminiscences of Eton, Stone mourns the passing of the Christopher, a once-popular pub that had been the center of much Eton social life until declared out of bounds for students. Reading about old Eton, one is perhaps surprised to realize both how much unsupervised time the boys had on their hands and how much of it was spent drinking. GPL].
It is possible to drop a tear on the memory of the Christopher, without wishing it back again. A great deal was eaten and drunk there; old Etonians lounged over the rails and chaffed the ostlers in the court below, or exchanged a word and a laugh with the beautiful Pipylena, who came to the door of the bar for a breath of air and sunlight; here was old Garraway bustling out to receive the London coach, or discoursing wisely on stable matters to a group of young bucks; here passes a little Colleger with a bowl of "bishop" [a mixture of rum, red wine, leomon juice, and sugar] — at twelve shillings a bowl — under his gown, for his fag-master; and perhaps you might see what Gladstone used to see from his window at Mrs Shurey's opposite — the prisoners being taken across the archway to the coffee-room, where the magistrates sat — now a pupil-room [classroom]. The Christopher may have been a nest of temptations; but when it followed the fate of Montem, it left a great gap in the dailey life of Eton, hardly to be fileld by beer and skittles and Botham's, or the Nelson, or any other outlying inn. ["Out of School," 100-1]
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Bibliography
Stone, Christopher. Eton. London: A. C. Black, 1909.
Last modified 30 July 2006