Just across the street from the University Club house is the "fence," the most popular and widely known institution that ever existed at Yale. Dear alike to the alumnus and to the undergraduate, it occupies a place in the heart of every Yale man second only to that of the university itself. The "fence" proper extends along Chapel Street, the principal thoroughfare of the city, to College Street, bordering on the latter as far as Lawrence Hall. The "fence" is merely a three-railed wooden structure, the rails being round and about four inches in diameter. The top rail affords a convenient seat for the student, and the middle rail offers a support for his feet. Here on pleasant evenings several hundred collegians are wont to assemble, the members of each class occupying a certain portion of the fence reserved for it by one of the unwritten laws of the university. Freshmen are not allowed to "sit on the fence" until their ball nine has defeated the Harvard Freshmen. So eagerly is this privilege coveted that but twice in eighteen years have the Yale Freshmen failed to defeat their opponents. During the spring term the glee-club sings several evenings each week at the fence, and the students turn out en masse to hear the music. College songs are also sung there almost every evening by coteries of the musically inclined. Almost every event of importance is first discussed at the fence, and many a scheme has had its birth in this sacred quarter of the Campus. The establishment of the Yale Literary Magazine, the oldest college periodical in America, was decided upon by a few Yale men while sitting on the fence a half-century ago.
The fence is the scene of the celebration of all great athletic victories. Yale has perhaps defeated Harvard or Princeton in base-ball or has won the boat-race at New London. As a consequence, pandemonium reigns supreme at the fence. Bonfires are kindled, cannon crackers are exploded, and tin horns blown. Amid all the confusion, the sharp "'rah—'rah—'rah!" of the students rises and floats far away on the night air.
The fence is the point toward which the graduate first turns his steps when he revisits his Alma Mater. Years of toil in the busy world, amid the care and strife of business life, have failed to obliterate from his mind the tender memories that cling about the time-honored, hallowed spot known simply as "the fence."
New Haven society, properly speaking, is exclusive. This will be found to be the case in almost every college town where there is any "society" at all. If a man enters Yale provided with proper letters of introduction, he finds little difficulty in obtaining an entrée into the best of the many old families residing in New Haven. Introductions at parties, church fairs, and other social entertainments are rather rarely
