A quotation I recently chanced upon, set out below:
He says that, on his arrival at Cambridge, he found that the undergraduates drank hard, and that their conversation was even worse than their lives. As for work, they did none at all, but passed their time in cock-fighting, drinking, and creating disturbances. Corruption reigned in all the public offices.
The medical profession was distracted by jealousies, rivalries, and ignorance. The law was made ridiculous by the absurd technicalities of the courts, and the ignorance manifested by barristers in the laws and constitution of their own country.
Read on for the answer to this statement!
Well I suppose the reference to cock-fighting gave the game away! The observation was made by William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) the British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade, on his entry to St. John’s, Cambridge University, in 1778 at the age of seventeen!
The quotation was found in: Highways and horses. By Athol Maudslay dated 1888