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T H E G A M E
OF
C R I, C K E T
BY
FREDERICK GALE
A UTII () R. O. F.
'l H E LIFE OF THE HON. R. GRIMSTON' ‘MODERN ENGLISII SPORTS
.* ECHOES FROM OLD CRICKET FIELDS' ETC.
L ON DO N
SWAN SONNEN SCHEIN, LOW REY, & CO.
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1887

22- -3 * : 2 21 2 42
I'IN.INTED BY
SPOTTISW 90DE AND CO., NEW-STIRIZET SQUARE
LONDON
PIR. E. H. A. C. E.
—e-3-e—
I AM very old-fashioned in many of my notions: some
people, rightly or wrongly, call me a bigot.
Having followed cricket and its history, and having
served an apprenticeship to it from my earliest boyhood
—besides having mixed with the cricketers of all classes
throughout my life—my creed is that those only are
worthy of the name of “Cricketers who have followed
the old sport as a grand “English Game for its own
sake, whether in the greatest matches at home or in
the Colonies, or in a rustic match in the Vicarage
meadow, and that those who hang about it for their
Own Self-glory and selfish amusement and aggrandise-
ment—regardless of the interests of others—are traitors
and impostors. Therefore I neither give nor expect
quarter from the last-named class in putting before the
reader truthful records and experiences of the past,
and theories about the game which are derived from
the principles which have been instilled into my mind
by some of the best players in England, amateur and
professional, for over half a century. --
I am indebted to the proprietors of the different
vi Preface.
periodicals, the names of which appear in the Note
below, for allowing papers which appeared elsewhere
to be collected in one volume. The papers have been
corrected and revised for this edition.
The ‘Cricket Homilies,” which have a pretty good
sponsor, are intended specially for the use of young
cricketers.
During last autumn and winter I contributed a
series of letters to the Sporting Life on ‘The Game of
Cricket,” the substance of which appears in this volume,
in chapters instead of letters, under the title of “Rights
and Wrongs of Cricket,” with such curtailment only as
will prevent repetition of what has appeared elsewhere.
There are many good cricketers, for whose opinion I
have a great regard, who differ from me in some points,
and there are a great number of the best cricketers in
all parts of England who have written to me pending
the publication of the letters in the Sporting Life,
cheering me on, so here the letters are to speak for
themselves.
FRED" GALE.
AWOTE.
Nos. I., II., III., WI. have appeared in Baily's Magazine of Sports.
NO. IV. has 2 3 ,, Cricket. -
No. W. 5 * 3 5 ,, Pell’s Life.
NO, VII. 9 3 5 3 , Boy's Own Paper.
NO. VIII. 2 3 3 * ,, Echoes from Old Ch'icket Fields,
by Author.
No. IX. }} 35 , Sporting Life.
C O N T E N T S.
•—6-2-3- -
PAGT
T. AIBOUT AN OLD CRICKET-BALL . tº tº tg e * 1.
II. A PIPE IN FULLER PILCH'S BACK PARLOUR g e e 11
1II. 'THE CRADLE OF CRICKET . g & g e g & 27
IV. AN OLD CRICKETER'S TALE . e gº e g . . .39
V. Ol'ſ R. COUNTRY CRICKET-MATCHI
ABOUT OUTRSELVIES AND OUR NEIGHBOURS . & © 49
THE COUNCIL OF WAR AND THE BEADLE'S SENTI-
MENTS . e & e * tº g g tº & 54
THE JOURNEY DOWN AND THE FIRST INNINGs . . 60
LETHE'S FIRST INNINGS —IO, TRIUMPHE / . tº . 68
AFTER THE BATTLE . tº gº º e º * * 72
VI. SCRAPS FROM OLD SUPPER-TATBLES . g e g º 79
VII. CRICKET HOMILIES
INTRODUCTORY & tº tº º * e g * 93
PUNCTUALITY AND OBE DIENCE g g * . . 94
EATING, DRINKING, AND DRESS . e e g . 97
DUTIES OF A YOUNG PLAYER WHIO IS PUT IN LAST . 100
HINTS TO BATSMEN AND OTHERS . g e . . 103
BACKING UP, OVER-THROWS, GOOD BOWLING . . 106
“THE CAPTAIN ' , g tº g tº; wº º . . 109
viii - Contents.
TAGE
VIII. TwPNTY GOLDEN RULES FOR YOUNG CRICKETERs . . 116
IX. RIGHTS AND WIRONGS OF CRICICIET
PATRONS OF CRICKET . g º * * * . 121
CRICKET, AS IT WAS . º g & e g . . 128
CRICKET. As IT WAS (continued) . . . 137
CRICKET CLUBS . tº e e - * e . . 145
CRICKET-GROUNDS . i. * * • - * . 154
CRICKET IRULES . * e e e * e . . 164
BOWLERS - - & - * º e sº . 173
L. B.W. * & * g * e - e . . 182
AVERA GES º s * & s * e wº . 192
ENCOURAGEMENT OF CRICKET. e tº * º 201
COUNTY ELEVENS . * * º g g t . 212
AIDS TO CRICKET te e g e g g . . 221
THE LAST GROWL . * & e º is e . 230
TRAINING OF SCHOOL BOYS . g & . . 241
MR. MASON'S PICTURE OF KIENT AND SUSSEX 251
THE THIREE ERAS OF CRICKET 266
TEIE GAME OF CRTCETET.
T. ABOUT AN OLD CRICKET-BAII).
HAVING occasion to talk to a large party of friends and
admirers of the noble game of cricket, and of other
sports, I applied to several custodians of relics of cricket
for a loan from their collection. One kindly lent me a
bat of the year 1743, another a bat of a hundred years
old, and amongst the most valuable specimens was a
cricket-ball of the year 1840. Its colour was gone from
age and use, but the ball itself was in such perfect
condition, that had it been re-dyed and thrown out to
the fieldsmen on commencing a modern match, the only
remark which it would have elicited would have been,
‘What a capital ball !” It had, however, been only
once used in a match at Lord’s, in the days when it
was not the fashion to provide a new ball for each
innings. I was turning it over in my hands in one of
those glorious day-dreams, when the mind goes back
to the past and the halcyon days of youth, lazily sit-
ting before the fire, and more meo Smoking a contem-
plative pipe, when my eye lighted on some writing on
the ball. It was as follows: “In the match, Sussex
with Fuller Pilch given v. England, William Lilly-
B
2 The Game of Cricket.
white bowled twelve of the wickets of England with this
ball at Lord’s on June 8th and 9th, 1840; Sussex win-
ning by twenty-two runs.” I looked up my Lillywhite's
cricket scores, and found there was some “tall’ bowl-
ing on each side, Sussex having W. Lillywhite, James
Broadbridge, and James Dean ; and England having the
aid of Alfred Mynn, William Hillyer, James Cobbett,
and Samuel Redgate. May I add that those seven
would “stick up many of the modern school.
‘I wonder what you are made of, “old cock,” ” I
said, turning the ball round.
* Put it down (“put being pronounced like “but ).
‘It’s a “she,” and always was. It is not an “old cock.”
I distinctly heard old Tilly’s voice, and looked round
for a little man in flannels, white shirt, cotton braces,
and a tall fluffy black hat. It occurred to me that the
ball being dead, the old bowler had come out of his
ground' with impunity. His ghost was invisible.
“Don’t be excited, Lilly ; you are in the hands of a
friend who, amidst good report and evil report, stoutly
maintains that you were as good as any medium-paced
bowler of to-day,” and he says ‘better than most.”
The latter words were uttered in a soft feminine
voice, and again I looked round—for a female figure this
time, and from the softness of the tones I should most
particularly have liked to see her.
On my requesting her to come out and let me see
her, her reply was that she was invisible, omnipresent
amongst those who love cricket as an amusement and
a game of chance and skill. In fact she intimated to
me that she was the Spirit of Cricket. On my inquiring
if she was a happy spirit, she informed me that she was
very much so, and whether it was amongst little ragged
About an Old Cricket-Ball. 3
boys who were playing on a village green with a clumsy
home-made bat and a wooden ball, or amongst men
whose names were famous all over the world, so long
as the objects sought were health and happiness, and
honest rivalry and fair play, she was there, though never
visible to the outward world.
“What is this ball made of 9 I asked.
* Come and see,” she said.
‘Can’t you take me in a fairy chariot 9” I asked.
* No ; we spirits have no power over mortals. You
must meet me where I tell you, at an appointed time
at a cricket-ball factory, and you must travel as you
mortals do by Ordinary means,’ and she named the
time and place.
So I referred to my Bradshaw, and travelled by
train; and, after a run of something like thirty-five
miles, arrived in a charming wooded country which will
compare with any picturesque part of England as re-
gards beautiful rural scenery.
I looked about for tall chimneys and machinery,
and inquired for ‘the factory.’ ‘There it is,” said a
countryman, “the other side of the road,” and pointing
to what appeared to be a row of cottages (which I
believed they really were) knocked into one large
building, with a ground and first floor running
throughout, with Outhouses; ‘ that is where they make
the balls.” Both floors of the building were filled with
workmen, young and old, many of them having suc-
ceeded to their fathers’ or grandfathers’ vacant seats,
who had joined the majority, after passing a lifetime
at ball-making, winter and summer. The view of
waving trees, and the song of the birds which came in
merrily through the open windows, made the place
I 2
4. The Game of Cricket.
look the beau idéal of the birthplace of a cricket-ball.
A very good cricket-ground is situated close to the
factory, and the factory turns out a very good eleven of
its own.
The Spirit of Cricket bade me pick up a used-
up old ball and pull it to pieces. “Why, there is no-
thing in it,' I thought (after taking off the leather
case), “but rolls of worsted, twine, and pieces of cork,
cut like the shreds of lemon which one puts in “toddy,”
or a “ dhrop of punch,” according to the nationality of
the whisky,’ as yard after yard of worsted came un-
ravelled, and shred after shred of cork tumbled off.
As the ball decreased in size, the accurate roundness
still remained, until it became no bigger than a small
potato ; and I observed that every shred of cork was
strongly cut in by the tightness of the worsted twine,
and when the potato became almost a potatolet—to
coin a word—two or three smaller and thicker shreds
‘ came asunder in my 'ands’ (as a country maid-of-all-
work says when she drops a china plate), and out
tumbled a little block of substance like an irregular
square of hard wood, and the ball lost all outward
appearance whatever of its former self, and was a ball
no more. I picked up the centre block; it was clearly
made of cork, but cork compressed, hardened, harder
than the toughest champagne cork ever seen. “And is
this the hend ' 'I exclaimed, like Miss Squeers, “apos-
trophising the Spirit; ‘a lot of rubbishing leather and
cork put together as a ball, and compressed into two
cup-shaped covers of a round form P’ “Just so,” said
the Spirit, “this is the hend, as you ask in a pet; but,
like many who are apt to get a little rough in temper,
let me give you a friendly caution. If you get cross and
About an Old Cricket-Ball. 5
obstinate, that moment I leave you, though I know you
mean right.” “I beg your pardon, Spirit,' I penitently
whispered. ‘Don’t go in the middle of the over; I
really am d-–’ ‘Hush ' ' she breathed in my ear, ‘I
know you were going to add “Sorry” to a very naughty
epithet; but if you use rough words, although they mean
nothing, they are foolish, and sound wrong, and may
keep the parsons off the cricket-ground, and we spirits
are never-r so happy as when a young parson is playing
on his village green.’
At the Spirit’s suggestion, I took up the inside of a
ball just newly finished, composed of these shreds of
cork and worsted, and laid it. On a bench, and hammered
it with a wooden mallet, which rebounded without
making the slightest impression on the substance which
is called ‘the quilt.’’ ‘If I once saw this put together,
and was accompanied by a sharp young fellow I know,
who can do almost anything with his hands, I think
he could make a ball.”
‘I don’t think he could, Mr. Mortal; but, in the first
place, you and your friend will not see it, as the room
in which this part of the ball is made is the Bluebeard
cupboard of the establishment, and is sacred to members
of the firm, and trusted old hands, who are bound to
secrecy. But come through the place with me. Look
into that yard; there are raw cow-hides, all English
hides. Don’t you think that when the good little boys
who have said their little nursery rhyme of
“Thank you, gentle cow,
Who gives us nice milk,
Every morning and every night,
Soft and warm, and fresh and white, &c.”
* The quilt is the whole interior of the ball
(3 The Game of Cricket.
should, when they grow into big boys or (like your
class) “Old boys,” should allow the cow to “score one *
for letting us have her hide, after we have milked her
dry and eaten her, to say nothing of tripe and cow-
heel? Well, come on, Mortal, or you will miss your
train. Well, as you said, there were the raw hides;
now turn in here. There is a pile of the tanned and
prepared hides, hard and white and shiny like the out-
side of a cavalry soldier’s shoulder-belt. Now look at
that man with a pot of stuff like red paint; he is laying
On the dye—which, mind you, is intended for hard
wear and will not come off with wet, like the beautiful (?)
colour on some ladies’ cheeks. There is stage “one *
of the cover; and how would you like to work all day
in that room, amidst that atmosphere of ammonia?
So much for him. Now come here and see that man
with a shoemaker’s knife cutting out the four quarters,
like the four quarters of the skin of an orange. There
is not much art in that, you say 9 Very well, wait for
my final remark; and you are thinking the same about
the work of that man who is sewing two of the quarters
together. Any cobbler could do that, you say. Think
for one moment what that ball has to do | Perhaps it
has to be hammered by men with strong arms and quick
sight, such as Mr. I. C. Thornton, or Mr. Bonnor, “the
Australian Baby,” as that genial giant has been styled
(in love, and not in derision); and, beyond the Ordinary
rough usage of a ball, may have to drop on chimney-
pots or roofs, or on hard roads outside the ground ;
and, mind you, that ball must keep its shape, and the
stitches must hold. Now look at that man who, having
put the quilt inside, sews the two cases together. Took
at the quilt and the two cups. Why the jacket, as we
About an Old Ch'icket-Ball. 7
will call the leathern cover, does not fit by a quarter of
an inch How can the sewer manage it? Watch him
Inow, putting on those cases—either outside fitting into
a vice—the receptacle for the ball being two iron cups.
See the veins swell in his arms and forehead as he
screws up that vice; the pressure is so great that
sometimes the screw breaks. -
“He has done it, and the two edges are more than
brought together; and now is his opportunity for
making the first row of “holding stitches,” which have
to bear the greatest strain; and it is done. What an
ugly thing that ball is when she is released from the vice
with her first row of stitches, and the edges pouting
like a sulky girl’s lips | Look at the once-rough seam
now, after the ball is released from a second press
which flattens the stitches | None of the stitches have
given in the least, and in the place of that seam is a
smooth surface, and the edges of the two cups have
been united as firmly as an evangelical old maid’s lips,
when a so-called ‘gospel-speaker’ has turned on the
blue fire with an eye to the destruction of those who
differ with him.
‘That young fellow marking and pricking the holes
for the other seams has a quick and true eye. If you
doubt me, take up any one of those finished balls and
see how true the stitches are, and how evenly the line
of stitches goes round. The old gentleman with his
shirt-sleeves tucked up is putting a finish to the work,
and does the outside seams; he has just finished one.
You see he is not excited, as you seem to be; it is his
daily work, and he has done his best. He simply hands
it over, and the ball is weighed, and if it is true, and
is neither under 5 ounces nor over 5% ounces in weight,
8 The Game of Cricket.
the ball is now handed to the stamper, who puts it in
a press, down comes the brand “J. Duke, Penshurst,”
and it goes forth to the world with an unknown fate
before it. If it is given as a present to a small boy,
other boys are sure to join him, to show him how to
play with it; and if they should be boys of low morals,
a case of “lost ball” occurs, and some pirate finds it
and sticks to it. Sometimes it passes through the
dignity of an “All England Match,” and afterwards
becomes a “bowler’s ball,” and gets soaked with rain
and baked in the sun, and grows into an “old pud-
ding ”; and eventually some village boys get hold of it,
and take off the leathern cover, and net a cover for it,
and play hockey with it; and at last it gets too ragged
and old for hockey, and it joins the majority of old
cricket-balls and gets into the unknown world of its
class—wherever that may be ; and sometimes, as you
see, it has the good deeds of the last possessor recorded
on it, and preserved as a treasure, as that ball of old
Lillywhite's is. Now look at that brand-new ball,
Mortal, and does it not give the world as much pleasure
as any toy ever created 9”
‘Yes, Spirit; but does it not bring trouble too?’
‘Yes, it does, as I know from history, but I never
see it. I told you before that directly strife, or anger,
or sharp practice begins, I disappear; and, to tell you
the truth, no real cricketers can get on without me. I
have the influence of smoothing down rough edges of
temper, and of inculcating the love of fair play—quick
temper doesn’t count. You, for instance, blaze up like
flax in the fire; but I should not talk to you if I thought
you would play a man on your side if he, according to
your honest belief, did anything unfair.’ -
About am Old Cricket-Pall. 9
‘Then, Spirit, do you help those who try to prevent
unfair play? If I was an umpire, for instance, would
you help me?’
‘Yes, I would, by putting into your heart moral
courage to have the doubtful play fairly tested. In the
Old days, you know, when a man was suspected of jerk-
ing, he was compelled to put on a dark waistcoat and
trousers, and to have a jacket with a black sleeve well
chalked; and if the chalk marks came off he was left
Out of matches. And I would put it into the umpire’s
heart to insist on a doubtful bowler, gentleman or
player, tucking his sleeve up above the elbow; and if
he wouldn’t, I would “no-ball ” him—on fair suspicion
of the concealed elbow and the wrist being moved
together, if the bowling looked like a throw ; and that
umpire would be well supported by those who love me.”
“But who is this Duke, Spirit 9”
* Supposed to be a representative of the oldest of
the many cricket-ball factories in England; and I sup-
pose he is, as the first Duke gave the first treble-seam
ball to George IV. when Prince of Wales, and a boy, such
as you see him in Gainsborough’s picture of him, with
an Old Spoon bat in his hand at Lord’s ; and he cannot
count with accuracy the number of his great and great-
great-grandfathers who preceded him ; and I don’t think
the Duke family have sustained much loss by each in
turn having gone into the factory as a youth, with his
sleeves tucked up and his apron on, and putting his
own hands to the work—for, mark you, there is no
steam or machinery, but it is all done by hand, and
all the labour of the various workmen is useless if the
finished ball does not pull the scale true. And now
good-bye.”
10 The Game of Cricket.
‘Good-bye, Spirit. I am very thankful for all the
kindness you have ever shown me from the days of my
boyhood.”
“I like gratitude,” answered the Unknown. ‘Take
your pipe out of your mouth, and I will give you a
kiss.”
It was such a joily one, and the only one I ever had
given by an unseen lady, except as a youngster, playing
‘Blind Man’s Buff” with some pretty girls in an old
country house—I being the blind man—in the Christ-
mastide preceding her present Majesty’s marriage.
Ill-natured people will say that Mr. Duke has very
kindly shown me all over his factory, and that was all,
and that the Spirit was a ‘myth.” Suppose he did; is
that any proof that I did not see that Spirit?
| |
II. A PIPE, TN FULLER PILCH'S BACK
PARI/OUR.
IN the year 1839, when a boy at Winchester, I was
spending a holiday at Tunbridge Wells, in days when
half sovereigns were rare things to handle—for country
parsons with large families who owned large appetites
could not throw away coin in thoge days—when the old
governor said, says he, to my brother and self, ‘Boys,
there is half-a-sovereign. I heard this morning that
there is a grand match in Penshurst Park, and that
Pilch, the great batsman, is going to play.” Ben-
nenden v. Penshurst was the match, and a splendid
match it was too; for particulars whereof, see ‘Lilly-
white: his Scores, ii. 531. Martingell appeared as Fuller
Pilch’s pupil in that match.
A committee of ways and means was held by the
mouveaua riches, and they determined to walk seven
miles and save their money, and the committee voted a
supply of the finest Havannah cigars, seven for a shil-
ling. The cigar shop exists now, for I saw it the other
day for the first time since the day of that match;
but I am older, and an ounce of Virginia answers my
modest wants now. This occurred in August 1839,
and I shook old Fuller Pilch by the hand for the last
time some thirty years later on, happily without
knowing it was so ; for if I had known it was for the
12 The Game of Cricket.
last time, I really think I should have fallen upon his
neck and wept. What a tableau it would have made
I can see him now on the Canterbury cricket-
ground giving me a lesson in batting, in 1845. “There
now, here's the wicket as you are a-going in to ; you
go behind the wicket and find out where the bowler’s
hand will be, get the middle stump in a line between
yourself and bowler’s hand, and you sight the ground.
Then ask for your block, and if you have hit it right,
put your right foot firm behind the crease clear of the
in-stump, and take your block right on the crease, and
throw your left foot forward and keep your left shoulder
up, and never let the bowler's hand be off it; and as long
as you don’t draw your left foot on the On-side you can’t
play with anything but a straight bat. Keep yourself
free and firm; but be sure if you drop your shoulder
or draw your left foot you are a dead man. Don’t be
too anxious about hitting an off-ball until you are well
set ; and then, if you feel your hand and eye are together
and know she is wide of the off-stump, throw your left
leg forward and let her have it. I didn’t do so myself,
as I could reach her off or not, and make the drive, or
place her where I could see an opening ; it is safer,
though less showy. You take care in playing forward
against good bowling to watch the pace; for just as you
are as pleased as Punch at your defence, a good bowler
will drop one shorter and slower, and it will be his turn to
laugh if he bowls and catches you, as he very likely will.”
Now, we are all going to sit in Fuller Pilch’s back
parlour at the Saracen's Head, at Canterbury; and re-
member, I say ‘we,” not in an editorial point of view,
but every cricketer, old and young, shall have a corner
in the room, and he shall not Smoke cigarettes, though,
A Pipe in Fuller Pilch's Back Parlour. 13
if old-fashioned, he may smoke cigars. He must be there
sharp at seven o’clock on Sunday evening, and he must
take a yard of clay or a cigar, and listen to old Fuller
talking about the old Kent eleven.
Now my critical friend, who says, “He’s off again,
that fellow—that laudator temporis acti, he’s mad,' you
shall not come into Fuller’s parlour. You shall wear
lavender kid gloves, and put a glass in your eye, and
smoke a big cigar, and walk in the Cathedral Close, and
ogle the maidservants who are walking with Corporal
Smith or Private Brown of the Light Bobs. As regards
the editorial ‘we,” except in newspapers, I hate it. The
Queen is the only “we” in England with that exception.
Now come, come, no more chaff. For very many
years Canterbury and its vicinity has been a second
home to me, and it is quite off my conscience that I
never committed the sin of abstaining from paying old
Fuller a visit on Sunday evening, when out on a run
from Saturday till Monday. Cathedral in the morning,
luncheon, &c.; in the afternoon, tea, claret cup, &c., in
the garden under the trees near the Cathedral; and in
the evening, a quiet talk in Fuller's private room passed
the day.
‘Pilch, what do you think of present cricket 9”
“Well, there,’ and ‘Ay,’ were Pilch’s favourite
words. ‘Well, there, it never was better, and never was
worse ; there’s too much of it, and you know what a
man is going to do before he does it.’ [Please remem-
ber that Pilch used to talk of ‘hands,’ ‘ notches,’ and
“bowling,” pronounced as ‘howling.’] ‘ It is like seeing
a play over and over again, when they come in at the same
place and go out at the same place every night; there is
more business than pleasure in it, too often.”
14 The Game of Cricket.
* Now, Pilch, let’s have a talk about the old ſent
eleven.”
“Then let me light my pipe, and you light yourn.”
Pilch’s smoking also was pretty much ‘make-believe.”
He ‘sat behind a yard of clay for company’s sake, but
I know very often there was no tobacco in it. He kept
himself in the strictest training when a player, and the
habit grew upon him. “Now I will tell you just what
the Kent eleven was to my mind: it was an eleven of
brothers, who knew one another, and never knew what
jealousy was. It is true that I was paid to come into
the county, and brought Martingell in too ; but, bless
my soul! as soon as any man had been twelve months
amongst the cherry Orchards and hop-gardens and the
pretty Kentish girls, he couldn’t help becoming Kent
to the backbone. Why, look at the support we had,
and look at the money in the county. All the land
almost was held by rich noblemen and gentlemen ; and
the farmers many of them were worth their twenty
thousand pounds, and farmed very high, and had leisure
to enjoy themselves. Why the cherries would go on
a-growing, and the hop-bine keep On Creeping, night
and day, whilst they were looking at a cricket match.
Think of our supporters—Mr. Wykeham Martyn, Mr.
Twisden Hodges, Lord Sondes, Lord Harris, Mr. Selby
of Town Malling, and half a score more in the county,
and plenty of them outside the county too: Squire
Chamberlayn in Hampshire, Mr. Charles Taylor and
Mr. Goring in Sussex, all the Hoare family in Surrey,
Mr. Ward and Mr. Bowdler, and lots more, at Lord’s.
Why you might keep on counting till the end of your
life, and never name half of them. When they wanted
a match they would send for Ned Wenman and me and
A Pipe in Fuller Pilch's Back Parlour. 15
say, “We want a good match ; can you do it?” Well,
then we used to reckon what it would come to, and they
were at our backs if there was any money wanted; but
we never asked for it if we made a good thing. Now
don’t you see here was the difference between those
times and these ; there were few railways, and matches
were scarce, and some of our eleven put on different
sides would draw all the country round for a two days’
match in a nobleman’s park; for instance, Mr. Felix
and Alfred Mynn were given one side, and Ned Wenman
and me and Adams the other. Then, don’t you see we
were out for a two days’ holiday, and the whole town
enjoyed themselves, and the principal innkeepers used
to arrange to have our company on different nights;
and very often a lot of gentlemen would come too, and
hear a song, for we had rare singing about in the
county; and if Mr. Felix had his fiddle with him—for
he could make music on anything, from a church organ
to a pair of tongs—it was a treat. I remember one
night, when there was a concert, or theatricals, or some-
thing, Mr. Felix was playing in the band, and old Lilly-
white was sitting behind him and saw the music, and
he said, “ Muster Felix, you are bound to have an over-
throw or two over all those crooked notes.”” -
“But, Pilch, how about the cricket the next day after
a long evening?”
‘I used to manage that. Two glasses of gin-and-
water were about my allowance; and when some of the
company were asking me to drink, I told the landlord,
“Let the gentlemen pay, and you leave the gin out of
my glass”; and nobody knew it, but I was wetting my
pipe with cold water half the evening. Ay, and haven’t
I seen some good company in many a butler's private
16 The Game of Cricket.
room when we were playing a great match l—ay, and
drank rare good stuff, too ! The gamekeepers used to
drop in by accident, and the ladies’-maids and the
housekeeper; and I have known some of the young
gentlemen staying in the big house come down and
smoke their cigars and talk cricket; for Isay gentlemen
were gentlemen, and players were players, much in the
same position as a nobleman and his head-gamekeeper
might be, and we knew our place and they knew theirs;
and if some of the gentlemen had not so much money
as some of the present day, they had a precious deal
better manners than some whom I know, and weren’t
hand-and-glove with the players one moment and bully-
ragging them the next. Many of the players were game-
keepers, carpenters, and other trades, and, when the
match was over, went back to their business and felt
that they had had a good holiday. Why, money couldn’t
get a gentleman into the Kent eleven. Some one might
say to me, “Pilch, Mr. So-and-so, the rich brewer or
banker’s son, wants to play in the county eleven.”
“Very well,” I used to say, “let me see him make a
‘good hands’ against good bowling, and see what he is
worth in the field, and if he is good enough he shall
play.” I didn’t much like gentlemen in the eleven
unless they were heart and soul cricketers; they might
be up late dining, or playing billiards or cards or what
not overnight, and lose a match ; but I knew a good
one when I saw him.
“There are three now I call to mind, some who
played for Kent—Mr. Emilius Bayley [now Sir Emilius
Bayley, a Church of England minister], Mr. Edward
Banks, and Mr. Edward Swann–the last was our long-
stop very often—and they did work. Mr. Bayley did
A Pipe in Fuller Pilch's Back Parlour. 17
not play often, but he was a fine long-leg and cover-
point, and no mistake. He brought his name from Eton.
Then Mr. Edward Banks : Ifound him down Sandwich
way, where his property lay. He and his youngest
brother, Mr. William, were the quickest between the
wickets I ever did see, and Mr. Edward was one of the
smartest in the long-field. He was like a thoroughbred
horse, for no matter how far the ball was off he would
try; and when I sung out, “Go to her, Mr. Edward
go to her | * he would outrun himself almost, and, as
sure as ever he got his hands to her, the ball was like a
rat in a trap.”
‘What I say is this now, that a good many gentle-
men, and players too, are afraid of dropping a catch,
and they drop back for the first bound, instead of going
to her neck or nothing. Nothing pleases the public so
much as a hard running catch, or does a man more
credit, and every catch ought to be tried if possible.
Now Jupp and Daft come across my mind, and remind
me of the old sort of player—never tired in the field—
like a brick wall to bowl at, and trying every mortal
chance in the game.’
* Now, Pilch, let us run over some of the old eleven.”
“All right, sir. Now for the bowling. Alfred Mynn
and Hillyer, with Tom Adams, Martingell, Hinkley,
Mr. Frederick Fagge for a change, and Edgar Wilt-
shire somewhat later. Very often we didn’t want the
change, if the ground was strong enough to bear Alfred
Mynn; for, if the ground was rotten, he dug a grave
with his left foot. Ground and weather didn’t matter
to Hillyer ; rough or smooth, wet or dry, sand or mud,
he could put a ball on a sixpence, and he did just what
Ned Wenman told him. You remember, when the
C
18 The Game of Cricket.
ground was a little hard, how Alfred would drop her
short, and the ball would cut right across from the on
to the off, and hum like a top. When he first began,
ne'er a man in England but his brother Walter would
long-stop for him ; and I have something to say about
him presently, and long-stopping too.
“I think long-stopping is generally better now, for
the ground is rolled for long-stop, and he is made one
of the most important men in the field, and long-stop
was looked on pretty much as a man who was condemned
to hard labour; though my nephew, William Pilch, and
Jack Heath and Mortlock of Surrey, and Mr. Charles
Ridding were as good as ever I saw.
“Just think of Ned Wenman behind the wicket :
was there ever a better? He didn’t stop every ball, or
every other ball, perhaps, for he left his long-stop to
do his own work. “What’s the good of Mr. Walter
Mynn for long-stop,” he used to say, “if I am to do all
his work and knock my hands to pieces? No; let him
do his work, and I will do mine.”
‘I can see Ned Wenman now,” said Fuller, “with his
eye on the batsman’s foot and the crease, without any
pads or gloves; aſid as sure as a man showed a sign of
drawing his foot, he took the ball close to the bails and
just broke the wicket, and looked at the umpire if he
thought it was out ; and it was very seldom that e'er
an umpire said “No” to him, for he was a real good
judge.
“There was another rare pull we had, for it so
chanced that there never was a better short-slip than
Hillyer, or than Alfred Mynn; one hand was good
enough for Alfred, for his fist was about the size of a
Small shoulder of mutton. Lord ' what a man he was
A Pipe in Fuller Pilch's Back Parlour. 19
when he was about thirty years of age—nearly six feet
two, and near upon eighteen stone, all bone and muscle,
when he played Dearman in 1838. He was sleeping
at Town Malling, and he called me into his bedroom
when he was dressing to play, and was standing without
his shirt on, and he said, “Fuller, do I look fit to play to-
day?” Why he looked fit to carry a church and a whole
congregation round the town, for he trained for that
Imatch as if he was going to fight.
‘That match was made against me, for I had beaten
Marsden, the champion; but I chose to name a man, and
named Alfred Mynn. There was a deal of money lost
on that match, for they hadn’t seen Alfred much in the
North, as he got knocked to pieces at Leicester, in 1836,
in North v. South, and was laid up all 1837 almost.
But Yorkshiremen will back their man. “Be a man or a
mouse, hedge nought,” is their motto.
‘You remember the old eleven 9 Tom Adams in the
long-field, and Mr. Felix point. There was a pair for
you ! How often did you ever see Tom Adams miss a
catch, or miss throwing a wicket down, if Mr. Felix
called to him to throw in the chance of throwing a man
Out? And how often did you see Mr. Felix allow an
Overthrow if he called on Adams to take a shot 9
Why, never, and that’s about it.
‘Dorrinton, again, what a useful man he was l—well
balanced everywhere : a fine field, good wicket-keeper,
and a very steady bat. He was six feet high, and so
were four more of us—Wenman, the two Mynns, and
me, and Tom Adams weren’t far off.
“Stearman and Clifford were finishing off pretty
much when you knew the eleven, but they were rare
good men too. And so was Martingell; he was a good
C 2
20 The Game of Crickel.
plucked one, and a good all-round man; and I suppose
Fuller Pilch weren’t much of a dunce at mid-off, and
not a very bad judge of the game.
“When we came to our batting, we managed to all
work together somehow. Ned Wenman played back
and cut, and I was about the most forward player in
England; and between us we puzzled the bowlers some-
times. My play, as you know, was a good deal what
they called “Pilch's poke,” because Irelied on smother-
ing the ball and drove her forward. I never liked play-
ing against Alfred Mynn, for he and Iwere like brothers
in the first place; and, in the second, he would drop'em
short and put all the steam on if the ground was hard,
for he knew my play. And people mayn’t think it, but a
short-pitched ball, cutting right across from the on to
the off, is about the nastiest stuff you can have ; for if
she shoots she wants a deal of play to stop her, and if
she jumps up “knuckle high,” it is a job to keep her
away from short-slip, or from popping up.
“Mr. Walter Mynn and Hillyer were two useful
ones, though neither of them batted in any style, and
Walter was very stiff. But those two never knew fear,
and if we were likely to want a few notches at the
finish, I always kept them back to the last ; or if we had
a quarter of an hour to time I would put them in and
say, “You two bide till the clock strikes seven, and
don’t think of the notches.” Ay, and many a time
they’ve done it too !
“But Mr. Felix on his own day was my man. He
was not so safe as Mr. Charles Taylor of Sussex, or
Joseph Guy of Nottingham, or Ned Wenman, or per-
haps me; but when he got to work, and the ground
and the light suited him, it was a wonderful sight to
A Pipe in Fuller Pilch's Back Parlour. 21
See him bat. He knew the whole science of the game,
and had a hand and eye such as no one e'er beat him at ;
and when he saw the ball was pretty well safe to keep
Outside the off-stump, it was a beautiful thing to see
him throw his right foot forward—for, as you remem-
ber, he was left-handed—and do a little bit of tip-toe-
ing, with his bat over his shoulder; and if he did get
the ball full, and it missed the watches, you heard her
hit the palings on the off-side almost as soon as she
left his bat. Hawkins of Sussex, who always batted
with his bat over his shoulder, and took guard within
six inches of his wicket, sometimes made as fine a cut,
but Mr. Felix never missed her if he had time to see
her. Tom Adams, too, was a real good One in a match.
He was never a first-rate bat, or a first-rate bowler, but
a magnificent field, and he worked like a horse, and if
the bowling got a little loose he was a rare punisher.
He was a curious customer, and looked so knowing,
with a corkscrew “gipsy curl’’ on each side of his face.
And couldn’t he throw, and shoot, or play skittles, or
anything else And though he wasn’t a quarrelsome
man, if there was a row and he was insulted, he was
ready for any number—one down, t’other come on. And
what a temper Mr. Felix had and what a laugh too !
and didn’t he like to go on with old Lillywhite a bit !
He used to have a little joke when he came in. He
would go into the middle, and pick up a little bit of
paper or straw, or what not, and look up to old Lilly-
white, who was a little impatient, waiting with the ball
in his hand. “Good-morning, Mr. Lillywhite Halloa
a cricket-match on to-day, ell? and you a-bowling 9
Well, let’s have an innings.”
“Well, old Lillywhite would be a little bit cross
22 The Game of Cricket.
perhaps, sometimes, and would answer him a little sharp,
and “You go and mind your batting, Muster Felix,
and I will mind my bowling ”; and it was wonderful
to see the care Mr. Felix took for an over or two. It
was no use sending him up one to hit with an England
or Sussex field round until Mr. Felix felt “set ’’; but
directly he knew that hand and eye were master, to it
he went, and if he got the chance he did punish the
bowling.”
“Do you remember the match at Canterbury, Kent
v. England, in 1842, Fuller?”
* Just what I do remember. There were four or five
good hands made in that match against England, and
so there were against us. Mr. Felix and I and Alfred
Mynn were in pretty near a whole day against eight
bowlers, and over 750 balls were bowled in the first
hands. Tom Barker and Joseph Guy made the long
hands for England; and our side bowled almost as many
balls. Kent got 278, and England 266. And then the
ground was so cut up that Lillywhite and Dean, with-
out a change, got the lot of us for 44 in our second
hands, and Kent lost by nine wickets. When we got
the 278, one of the Kentish farmers offered thirty
pounds to one on Kent, and an officer at Canterbury
took him four times over, and old “top-boots” did sigh
when he went home for his canvas bag to pay up. A
deal of money was lost on that match; for though
there was not much betting, like as on a racecourse,
the farmers did like their sovereign or five pounds on
Kent, and they were not happy till they got on a trifle.
They used to offer to take a sovereign from me before
going in, and pay me a shilling a run; and a good
thing I made of it sometimes. And then—some of
A Pipe in Fuller Pilch's Back Parlour. 23
them—they would give me the shilling a run and my
own sovereign back too very often, if Kent won.”
‘I don’t say that men can’t play as well now as
then ; but I do say that a stronger band of cricketers
was never got together than our eleven at its best ;
for, as I said before, we were like a band of brothers.
‘Now, just remember from whom England had to
choose for bowling. Lillywhite, Redgate, Cobbett, Dean,
Fenner, Daniel Day, Dakin, Sir Frederick Bathurst,
Mr. George Young, Tom Barker, Mr. Fellowes, Wisden,
and a score more. Clarke came later with his slows,
and did a deal of mischief. Look at the England bat-
ting. Joseph Guy, Mr. Charles Taylor, Hammond,
Bushby, Mr. Haygarth, Mr. E. H. Pickering, Mr.
Nicholson, Tom Barker, Box, Hawkins, Sewell, George
Parr (the finest leg-hitter ever seen), the Hon. F. Pon-
sonby, and others. Why, they weren’t dunces, I know.
There was some wicket-keeping, too, in those days.
Mr. Herbert Jenner, Mr. Anson, and Mr. Nicholson and
Mr. William Ridding knew their book pretty well, and
Box and Wenman were as good as any I ever did see;
and you must get up very early in the morning to see
any one in the field who would beat Mr. Charles Taylor
at mid-off, and Mr. William Pickering at cover-point
or long-leg, or Hawkins or Mr. Felix at point. Haw-
kins did look, as he was, a barber all over, and advertised
his shop with his own figurehead, for his hair was curled
just like a poodle dog's.
“There now, I’ve had my say, and mind, I don’t
mean to state that in any age one or two may not
spring up as good, or perhaps better than ere a one
who went before, and who are as heart and soul in the
game as we were ; but I do say this, that some—young
24 The Game of Cricket.
gentlemen especially—get pushed into county elevens
who would not have been thought fit company for our
third eleven ; and there is so much swagger and dress
in the cricket-field now sometimes, and so much writing
and squabbling with committees and secretaries and
players about cricket, that I often feel that the heart
Of the game is going, and that very many are playing
for their own glory more than for their county now.
‘I know this, that we played for the honour of the
county and the love of the game first, and, of course,
the gentlemen took care of us in the second place; and
when they tell me that we are only dreaming about the
past, and that things are much better now, and they
vex me a bit, I tell them : “Well, according to your
own showing, if nothing was so good thirty years ago,
when you came into the world, you admit that your
father and mother were not so good as the fathers and
mothers now.”
“Why did we go to pieces?” you ask. Well, the
fact was we all grew old together, and I often think
some of us played a year or two too long; but then,
the truth was, though I say it, the public liked the
names of Mynn and Felix and Wenman and Hillyer,
Adams, Dorrinton, Martingell—ay, and of Fuller Pilch
too. And I think we kept the candle burning a little
too long, till railways drew people away to take their
pleasure somewhere else, and every one was so busy
that they didn’t care for making a county holiday
uniess there was a lot of fiddling and dancing, and
play-acting, and what not. They don’t care to hear a
good Old English song as they did then, so it has all
drifted into committee cricket now, and our old backers
are under the turf instead of on it.”
A Pipe in Fuller Pilch's Back Parlour. 25
The last time I saw Fuller Pilch was a few months
before his bankruptcy, which, I believe, killed him.
The world did not prosper with him as it ought, and
he was out of spirits, and got so excited about the old
times that I had to drop the subject.
I paid a visit a year or two back to his grave to see
his monument and the bas-relief of him retiring from a
broken wicket. I pictured to myself his grand com-
manding figure, and in imagination repeopled the old
Town Malling ground with the brave old Kentish
yeomen, and could hear their ringing cheer as their
favourite, in his first over, broke the ice and made One
of his brilliant forward drives just out of reach of point
and mid-off, and I could hear Pilch’s voice, ‘Come on :
easy three, Muster Felia, l’ And I looked forward with
interest to see him represented in marble; but guess
my horror when I found the bas-relief to be nothing
more nor less than an accurate representation of a short
paralytic baboon who had sprained his leg in jumping
over a broken hurdle.
Canterbury, as I have said, is a charming place to
spend a Sunday in, and many people have a pleasant
custom of inviting a few intimate friends to supper
after evening service. Such was the custom at the
house where I was staying, and I was warned to be in
at half-past eight, and I was near my time, but a little
late. One of the principal people in the town was ex-
pected—a very staid, proper man—and, on asking if I
was in, the footman said, ‘He will be home in a minute
or two ; he went out at seven to smoke his pipe at the
Saracen's Head.” If the man had said, “He has gone to
see Fuller Pilch,” it would have been all right; but I
found afterwards that he had run the risk of getting for
26 The Game of Cricket.
me a character for spending my evenings in a public-
house parlour. Well, if no more harm ever came from
spending an evening in a tavern than my evenings
with Fuller Pilch produced, the world would be much
better, and there would be “lodgings to let’ in many a
gaol, lunatic asylum, and workhouse which are peopled
with drunkards.
This record is not drawn from my imagination, but
is an accurate account of sayings and doings recorded
by Fuller Pilch, and talked over with him, of some of
the finest cricketers whom the world ever saw, or ever
will see.
There is an old saying that facts are funnier than
fiction.
In the smoking-room of an hotel at the seaside
where I was staying, at the time when I was writing
this sketch of Fuller Pilch, a quiet, rather elderly
gentleman, little thinking that I had the proof in my
pocket, rashly asked, ‘Can any one tell me how old
cricket is 9° It was about eleven o’clock P.M., and the
inquirer and myself were left alone after a minute or
two, as the rest of the company were about retiring.
I began to answer his question, and, after an hour of
my harangue, I was left quite alone, my only companion
having fairly bolted, just as I was getting into the days
of Mynn and Felix. If he had not done so I should
have talked him to death.
27
III. THE CRADI, E! OF CRICKET.
OF all places which I dislike most on a Sunday, a
fashionable watering-place is my favourite aversion.
The sea looks different somehow on Sunday; and if you
happen to find a quiet sequestered nook where you can
Smoke a pipe in peace, kind-hearted and well-intentioned
ladies with ‘mortification bonnets hand you tracts such
as “The Sunday Stroller Reclaimed ' (about Sabbath-
breaking), “Put down thy Glass’ (ad rem to drunken-
ness), and “The Devil’s Weed,” a tract very personal and
indigestible to a man who is just enjoying a pipe which
draws well. And they hand you these tracts just as if
One’s conscience was a common on which every one has a
right to turn out geese and donkeys to graze. Very
much against the grain, and as a sheer matter of duty, I
went to Southsea, some seven or eight years ago on a
certain Saturday, and, as it turned Out, my journey was
the cause of one of the greatest pleasures I ever en-
joyed. Sunday was my own, and it suddenly occurred
to me that Hambledon was “within measurable distance,”
as Mr. Gladstone says, being only fourteen miles off;
but there was no railway, no tram, ‘no nothing' to help
me on any part of the way on Sunday until the even-
ing. So we—that is my eldest son, who was with me,
and self—determined on walking it, after taking a pre-
28 The Game of Cricket.
liminary half-crown’s worth of cab out of the suburbs;
and the distance being left to the cabby’s honour, he
took care not to give us too full measure. The wish of
my life had been to see the “Bat and Ball” on Broad-
halfpenny Down near Hambledon, which is acknow-
ledged on all hands to have been ‘The Cradle of
Cricket.”
Sauntering along leisurely over the grand down
country, we ‘struck oil” at the ‘Leopard’ at Pirbrook,
Some eight miles from Portsmouth, where a little re-
freshment became needful, and found a very old print
in its original frame, at least over a hundred years
old, which I have never seen elsewhere—and I think
I have seen most of the old pictures and prints of
the noble game. It is clearly the print mentioned
in Lillywhite’s Scores (page xv. of preface) as having
appeared on a silk pocket-handkerchief of prehistoric
times, which was in the possession of Mr. Humphrey
at Donnington. It was a picture of cricket of the
old skeleton hurdle wicket and club bat era, and the
laws of the game were printed on a corner. At this
little inn also we heard of the old records to be seen at
Colonel Butler’s at Hambledon, of which anon.
Wandering on through a beautiful country inter-
spersed with grand sweeps of open down, studded with
rich woodlands and gentlemen’s seats under the lea
here and there, in spite of the miles seeming to lengthen
out, we suddenly dropped into Hambledon village.
If Hambledon was not the scene of many of the
tales of Maria Edgeworth, it ought to have been ; and
though I believe the actual ‘Our Village’ of Mary
Mitford was in Berks, I choose to believe it was
Hambledon. It must have been at Hambledon that
The Cradle of Cricket. 29
* Lazy Lawrence’ robbed poor Jem, and that Tarleton
tried to poison Farmer Trueman’s dog in robbing the
apple orchard—in Maria Edgeworth’s tales. I would
not give a straw for a man who does not love the books
of his childhood, and believe in them too, and I trust
that there is no sound Churchman alive who does not
believe in the absolute truth of ‘ Robinson Crusoe’ and
* Gulliver’s Travels.” Now this Hambledon is a charming
village, and, you can see at a glance, a happy and
prosperous place, with good landlords, a grand old
church recently restored, and a grand old yew-tree split
into four or five pieces, with great gnarled trunks, as Old
as the church, underneath the shadow of which gene-
rations of patriarchs must have sat. It boasts many
pretty country houses with large grounds, good sub-
stantial farmhouses, and pretty thatched cottages all
in good repair, with little front gardens ablaze with
flowers and a goodly show of beehives, and in the
hedges and enclosures there seemed to be more wild
birds than I ever saw elsewhere. It is the kind of
place where the late G. P. R. James, the novelist, would
have introduced the three historical cavaliers ‘who
towards the close of a summer evening might have been
seen descending a hill,’ &c. And, by the bye—to digress
for a moment—I must record the immortal Thackeray's
witty remark about the fate of literary men. In one of
his works he says, “And my old friend Mr. G. P. R.
James, now consul at Venice, is possibly in the only
place in the world where it would have been impossible
to see three cavaliers riding down a hill.”
Hampshire miles, calculated by the lads of the
village, are like the Irish miles—precious long—and
the ‘little better nor a mile ’ to the “Bat and Ball”
30 The Game of Cricket.
out of Hambledon in reality seemed very like a long
two miles, and all uphill. Steady plodding on at last
brought us within view of a lonely wayside inn, stand-
ing on an eminence where four cross-roads meet, and
on sighting it we felt much as the crusaders did in
sight of Jerusalem. Barring the absence of the old
bow windows in the first floor, which was the club-
room, and a new sign vice the old sign, which was
blown down a few years since, the old house on the
outside is as it was in the days of the Hambledon Club
in 1750.
The old doorway and the iron clamped door and
the old bolts are there, and though “the punch that
would make a cat speak, sixpence a bottle,’ and the
ale, ‘genuine Boniface that would flare like turpentine,’
which Nyren talks of, are things of the past, some good
light beer did not drink the worse from knowing the
fact that we went in and out of the very door through
which Lord Tankerville, Sir Horace Mann, Lord Win–
chelsea, Noah Mann, Bill Beldham, and those worthies
who brought the game to a scientific contest, though
ruder than our modern game, had passed; many of
whom, I believe to this day, could throw and catch
and field as well as men of this day can now—-though
their bowling and batting was different—and a pretty
deal better than some of the flippant new school who
forget to wash their hands after bear’s-greasing their
hair, to which is facetiously attributed their dropping
two catches out of three, owing to discontinuing prag-
tice in fielding. All the old men tell us that, when
boys, they stood round the green and practised throw-
ing and catching every evening. Cricketers do not do
so now, and there is no denying it.
The Cradle of Cricket. 31
Oh, Goths and Vandals of this present, how many
sins you have to answer for There is no cause of com-
plaint that the old chimney-place at the “Bat and
Ball,’ with the dogs and seats in the chimney, are closed
—as wood is much dearer than coals now—though I
am glad to hear that the old bacon-loft remains. But
where is the iron gauge with which the Hambledon men
measured their opponents’ bats 9 Where are the old
club chairs? Where is the old sign which was blown
down a few years ago?
Alas ! the gauge was ‘took away by some gent who
fancied it.” Farmer Someone—I forget his name——‘a
very heavy-sterned man,’ as the landlord said, “ sate
in one of the old chairs, and come right down,” and
some one, probably with equally heavy physical develop-
ment, “ sate in the other and broke she '; and the only
remaining vestige of the past is the back of one old
chair made by the village carpenter, and intended to
represent three stumps and two balls.
The old sign was burnt to light the oven Sic
transit, &c.
The old clubroom, now screened off, is turned into
bedrooms, and the old cricket-ground, which was oppo-
site to the inn, was in wheat; and in hay when I saw it:
for, alas ! the authorities at Hambledon had the right
to claim six acres under an Inclosure Act, and rejected
the old ground which used to be common, and took Some
ground elsewhere nearer the village.
No doubt the landlady thought me insane as she
watched me poking about the premises and staring Out
of the bedroom windows at the field opposite, with no
ostensible object. The old Broadhalfpenny ground
must have been very like the Harrow ground, on a slope,
32 The Game of Cricket.
and very difficult to play on, particularly as our fore-
fathers had not begun roller-cricket ; and players, as
Nyren tells us, must have been knocked about in the
field and in the batting most terribly.
From information I received, as policeman X says,
there was a match every Sunday afternoon until the
ground was enclosed, and possibly this might have been
fatal to the continuance of the cricket-ground, as we
are not educated up to the days of Miss Mitford’s time,
for, in describing the Sunday evening practice before
her celebrated match, she says:
* Give me a patriot, a man who loves his parish
Even we, the female partisans, may partake this common
ardour. I am sure I did. I never, though tolerably
eager and enthusiastic at all times, remember being in
a more delicious state of enthusiasm than on the eve of
that battle. Our hopes waxed stronger and stronger.
Those of our players who were present were excellent.
William Grey got forty notches off his own bat; and
that brilliant hitter, Tom Coper, gained eight from two
successive balls.’ This was a scene in Sunday evening
practice in “Our Village.”
And in describing the delinquency of the deserter
James Brown, who had been ‘’ticed away' by a pretty
girl on the enemy’s side: “At ten on Sunday night
(for the rascal had actually practised with us, and never
said a word about his intended disloyalty), he was our
faithful mate; at ten o’clock in the morning he had run
away.” Upon my word, when I read Miss Mitford’s
‘Cricket Match,' I feel quite “spooney over her ghost;
and the greatest compliment I ever had was from some
editor (unknown) of an Indian newspaper, who, review-
ing a little cricket work of mine some years ago, said,
The Cradle of Cricket. 33
‘it was a monstrous pity that I had not been born years
before, as I could have married Miss Mitford.”
I should be very sorry to see Lord’s or the Oval
opened of a Sunday, or public matches played on the
village greens; but in out-of-the-way places, if the young
villagers who work six days a week come out on a
Sunday evening as our forefathers did, I don’t see why
they shouldn’t. And I don’t forget that the immortal
Keble, of ‘Christian Year’ motoriety, boasted that he
had not a young fellow in his parish who was a drunkard
and who did not go to church and could not play
cricket; and, unless his memory is wronged, that good
man used to watch the Sunday evening’s cricket at
Hursley, in Sir William Heathcote's park, with great
pleasure. We all know Charles Kingsley’s opinion on
these subjects; and many of the very High Church
party are quite coming round to Sunday cricket for the
real villagers. A few years ago I was an honorary
member and vice-president of a Sunday club who played
on Figg’s Marsh on the Epsom Road, and the rules of
their club were two only—a fine of threepence for any
rough language, and a fine of a shilling for bringing
beer or spirits on the ground—and I don’t regret having
held office. The members were industrious, sober men,
and played from three o’clock till seven, and then went
home.
IHere is a practical solution of a difficult question,
and these facts I know to be true. Given, 1, a pretty
parish on the Thames; 2, a good parson ; 3, a good
boating club ; 4, a fine Sunday morning ; 5, a lot of
young fellows who have been at work all the week :
result—on Sunday morning a large number started off
for a long row and let the church slide ; 6, given the
D
34 The Game of Cricket.
parson’s good sense, which he showed thus, viz. he
asked the club to meet him, and complimented them
on their quiet and Orderly management in everything,
expressed his regret that they did not go to church,
and offered them an hour's service at eight o’clock every
Sunday morning, and he asked them to form a choir.
Tesult—the ruling fashion of the club was changed, and
a new state of things started up, and the custom was,
church at eight A.M., breakfast at nine o’clock, start at
ten o’clock—and not only the boating club, but many
others went to the church too. All constitutions can-
not stand taking a week’s mental food at a meal, and
to have a week’s religious appetite arbitrarily ready be-
tween eleven o’clock and one o’clock once a week, as
if we were boa-constrictors and ate a rabbit at a meal.
I was not going away from Broadhalfpenny without
a sketch of the old house, and my son made one under
considerable difficulties, as he was surrounded by a party
of lads of the village, who criticised his skill, scrupling
not, when anything struck their fancy, to point it out
boldly with a good broad thumb on the paper, so that
it was hard to say which was the old clubhouse or
which were thumb-marks at the finish of the perform-
ance. I took stock of these lads of the village—and
a sturdy lot they were, hard as nails, like the New
Foresters, and handy fellows for a recruiting-sergeant,
Or, in days gone back, for the prize-ring; many of them
with a dash of gipsy blood in their veins, with black
curly locks, fit descendants of Noah Mann and the
merry men of his time. A thunderstorm came on, and,
in an exposed place like Broadhalfpenny Down, the
people were bound to give all surrounding neighbours
shelter ; and I will give you my honour that no police
The Cradle of Cricket. 35
rules were broken, as I and my son alone, as travellers,
were served, and of course he and I consumed the gallon
or two which was supplied to me. There was one silent
member, who looked on in astonishment at the drawing,
and spoke once only, and after a long steady gaze said,
“Well, I’m d dif he hais’n put in the new “chimly ’’
as true as any printed book I ever see ' ' And so back
to Hambledon on wheels, the landlord of the so-called
“New Inn”—though the rafters are not over-modern—
(where we had a capital dinner and hearty tea for seven-
and-fourpence for two of us) having very considerately
sent a carriage for us, as a thunderstorm was raging.
I don’t think much of the Hambledon sexton's powers
of imagination. I heard with glee that he could show
me graves of old cricketers, but most of them were no
use to me—mere boys, who died at seventy years old or
thereabouts—and the Only real old Hambledonian’s last
home I could find was Tom Sueter’s, whom Nyren thus
describes:—
“The name and figure of Tom Sueter first comes
across me—a Hambledon man, and of the Club. What
a handful of stout-hearted soldiers are in an important
pass, such was Tom in keeping the wicket. Nothing
went by him ; and for coolness and nerve in this trying
and responsible post I never saw his equal. . . . He
was the first who departed from the custom of the old
players before him, who deemed it heresy to leave the
crease for the ball. . . . He was the pet of the neigh-
bourhood: so honourable a heart that his word was
never questioned by the gentlemen who associated with
him ; and Dame Nature gave him a voice which, for
sweetness, power, and purity of tone (a tenor), would,
with proper cultivation, have made him a handsome
D 2
36 The Game of Cricket.
fortune. With what rapture have I hung upon his
notes when he has given us a hunting song in the club-
room after the day’s practice was over !”
If I had been that sexton, I would, to an ardent
admirer who was ready with a shilling, have shown
half the old Eleven, as the stones were illegible; just
as, in 1846, to please an old gentleman who was utterly
ignorant of the appearance of public men, and who was
dying to see Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Richmond,
after an honest search through the committee-rooms
to find those two statesmen, I used the late Fergus
O’Connor for Sir Robert, and the late Alderman
EIumphrey for the Duke, and sent the old boy home
happy as possible; and just as during the Crimean war,
when I missed, by about five minutes, seeing the Guards
leave London, a dear old parson and his sons, who were
equally unfortunate, enjoyed my description of the
scene, and were as much affected at the story of a
parting between a young officer and his fiancée as if I,
the narrator, had really seen it myself. I still think the
sexton should have found more graves for a shilling.
There was yet one thing more to see, which was the
cricket screen, which has been seventy or eighty years
in the possession of the family of Colonel Butler, of
Hambledon. In answer to a note sent from the inn,
stating that I was a cricketer and Wykehamist, who
happened to be in the neighbourhood and unable to
come at any other time, the Colonel sent me a cordial
welcome, and we drove to his house; and I saw in his
dining-room a screen with the original scores of the
Old Hambledon, commencing in 1777, printed on paper
as our scores are now on card; most of the matches
being headed, ‘ Grand Match, 1,000 guineas a side.
The Cradle of Cricket. 37
My kind host turned out to be a brother Wykehamist,
a tremendous cricket enthusiast, twenty years older
than myself, and therefore twenty times madder about
the noble game than I am. What a glorious future for
me, if I live for another twenty years
Well, treading in these old footsteps has been a
great pleasure, though I am very glad the 1,000-guinea
matches are at an end. Beldham told Mr. Pycroft that
there was much roguery. Mr. Budd, in records of his
life, complained of two or three pieces of sharp practice
of which a noble lord (no matter whº he was) was
guilty, both in cricket and running ; and old Bowyer
told me, a day or two before writing this, how in a
match, when the same noble lord drew himself in the
guinea lottery for runs, and was in with him (Bowyer),
he would not run any runs hardly but his own, if he
could help it, in order to get the lottery, “and,” said old
Bowyer, “Lord Ponsonby, who had drawn my name,
promised me two guineas if I got most runs; but Lord
went backwards and forwards to the scorers to
count his notches and mine, and the end of it was that
he got sixty-four and I only got sixty. Though,” said
the old man, “he did give me a guinea, Lord Ponsonby
would have given me two, and I call that kind of thing
which Lord did “cheating,” and nothing more or
less.”
By the bye, looking into the history of the fact,
many of the best authorities have come to the conclusion
that the five-hundred and a thousand-guinea matches
were ‘ catchpenny brag,” and that large sums were never
staked, though there was much betting.
And now I am happy, as I have in my bedroom a
plan of the field of Waterloo prepared by order of
38 The Game of Cricket.
H.R.H. the Duke of York after the battle, every inch
of which battle-field, both on the English and French
side, I have walked over several times and know
thoroughly ; I have a picture of the “Bat and Ball’; a
picture of Bill Beldham, taken when he was ninety-one,
in 1856; and of John Bowyer, the last survivor who ever
played against him, taken in 1877, under my own eyes,
when he was eighty-seven ; I have seen the place where
Sayers and Heenan fought, and I have seen the “Cradle
of Cricket.”
39
IV. AN OTD CRICKETER’S TALE).
TAKEN IN 1885.
“As it fell upon a day,” or rather an evening, in the
early part of the month of July in this present year,
sitting underneath a pleasant shade in a garden in the
Brompton-cum-Chelsea neighbourhood, enjoying the
calumet of peace in the cool of the evening, a hale and
hearty old gentleman arrived at the house of a friend
with whom I was spending the evening, and was intro-
duced to me as a well-known actor of the past, and an
ardent cricketer also. The name of this gentleman is
Mr. William Woolgar, the father of the celebrated Miss
Woolgar (Mrs. Alfred Mellon), who was the favourite
actress at the Adelphi for many years, and certainly
one of the finest artistes in melodrama in any genera-
tion of playgoers, and it seemed like talking to a ghost
of the past when the venerable ex-actor told me that
he had made his bow from behind the footlights sixty-
five years ago, and had constantly acted with Edmund
Kean, and also with Edmund Kean's nearest relative,
Mrs. Carey, to say nothing of Macready and other
theatrical managers who produced Shakespeare’s plays
in later days. Understanding that I was very fond of
cricket and cricket lore of all kinds, Mr. Woolgar in-
formed me that his grandfather, who resided close to
40 - The Game of Cricket.
IHambledon, and who was married in 1760, was one of
the members of the club a hundred and thirty years
ago—as was his father, who was born at Wickham (the
birthplace of William de Wykeham), a neighbouring
village to Hambledon, and died forty years ago in his
eighty-sixth year, playing a century ago; and that he
(the speaker) played his first match seventy years ago
in the Gosport district, and played his last match when
Over sixty years of age.
I am fond of old men’s tales, especially when those
who tell them take a lively interest in the doings of the
present day, and can talk with much interest about the
performances of modern cricketers. In this paper I
am simply recapitulating the evidence of my informer,
and making extracts from a number of notes which he
was good enough to lend me, and which are before me,
and which are recollections of family traditions before
his own personal experience. So I am only Mr. Wool-
gar's parrot. The pioneers of cricket were young
men following rustic employments, such as farmers,
thatchers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, &c., who used to
beguile their Sunday evenings, after afternoon church,
on the common (now probably Hambledon racecourse),
before the institution of the Hambledon Club at Broad-
halfpenny Down; and it is pretty certain that cricket
was a Sunday game mostly in the early days of George
III. Mr. Woolgar says that when he was young they
always played on a Sunday evening, and that the rector
of his parish (the Rev. Mr. North, a son of Bishop
North) did not object in any way. This exactly tallies
with Miss Mitford’s ‘Tales of Our Village,” in which
she describes the Sunday afternoon’s practice before
the grand match so admirably described therein. It
An Old Cricketer's Tale. 41
also is thoroughly confirmed by the fact that the ground
in front of the old “ Bat and Ball” was enclosed,
and the land was exchanged for some other land near
the village, because the Sunday cricket matches were
played there till about thirty years ago, which fact occa-
sioned the exchange, as large crowds assembled, and
the cricket became a rough and troublesome kind of
business and a very noisy meeting. I remember when
at school getting hold of a very old-fashioned novel, an
eccentric passage in which tickled the boys’ fancy and
was often quoted. A practical joke had been played
on the heroine, who appeared to have been of a violent
temper. Belinda (or whatever her name was) was left
to her fate, ‘and was discovered by a lot of young farmers
who had ridden over early, it being Sunday morning,
to play a set of cricket with the young sparks of a
neighbouring town. Guess their surprise when they
saw the damsel suspended in a sheet like a hammock
hanging outside the bedroom window.”
In this rude village cricket two stumps only were
first used, pretty near together, wide enough to let a
ball pass easily through ; there was no bail at first. The
stumps were two sticks cut out of the hedge, twenty-
four inches long, and they were sunk two inches firmly
in the ground. It was easy enough to tell when the
ball touched the inside of either stump, but doubts arose
about its touching the outside, and the bail was invented
to prevent doubts, and was called the “tell-tale.” These
stumps of twenty-two inches out of the ground belong
to the second era of cricket. At Lord’s, in the pavilion,
is the celebrated picture of cricket in 1743, the wicket
being a skeleton hurdle, probably about two feet wide
by a foot high. The second era is represented by a
42 The Game of Cricket.
picture in the pavilion opposite the committee-room
door, near the exit from the pavilion into the reading
and writing room, in which a game of eleven a side is
being played, the players attired in silver lace hats and
silk shirtings, and the wicket consisting of two stumps
of twenty-two inches (probably), near together, and a
single bail. The late Rev. A. R. Ward, of Cambridge,
was looking at that picture with myself a year or two
back (the Mr. Ward whose father was the walking dic-
tionary and historian of the game), and we put that
picture down to about 1760 or thereabouts. The ball
was commonly made by the village cobbler, much more
neatly finished than any one would suppose, and would
be soaked in water to make it heavier, if under weight.
No doubt this custom prevailed in other things, as our
footballs were soaked in water at Winchester to make
them heavy. The original bat used in this country
was much longer than present bats, and at the end took
the shape of a nautilus, and was flat like a cutlet, about
an inch and a half in thickness. It must have been
something like a New Zealand war-club. According to
Mr. Woolgar’s narrative, which was given only two
years ago, a Mr. Rogers, surgeon, of West Meon, near
EIambledon, still retains as family relics two of the
stumps, a ball, and a bat of the oldest period. The
bats which have been preserved and the oil picture at
Lord’s of the date of 1743 belonged to the “swells,” who
were adopting the game with better materials than
those used in purely country districts for village cricket.
It is clear that the swells first joined with the yokels
about that date, as the celebrated article in the ‘Gentle-
man’s Magazine’ was written then against noblemen
and gentlemen mixing with the common herd and
An Old Cricketer's Tale. 43
gamblers in cricket. John Small, the younger son of
the Small recorded by Nyren, who was ballmaker to the
old Hambledon Club, lived at Petersfield, and exhibited
a rough notice on his premises—
Here lives John Small,
Sells bats and ball,
And will play any man in England.
The younger Small had the credit of inventing the first
bats with a shoulder, much of the present form as re-
gards the face, and the bat became so popular that the
orders poured in upon him, and he could hardly make
them fast enough.
In the earlier cricket, before the publication of any
law which we now possess, the “mates’ were changed
every twelve balls, which formed an over, and the over
was subsequently reduced to six balls, and afterwards to
four balls. Sometimes the bowling was a ‘swift troll’
close to the ground, sometimes a ball was pitched a
length so that the batsman had to fall back and stop it
with a perfectly upright bat. Sometimes he advanced
a pace or two to meet it, which was the origin of the
crease being substituted for the hole cut in the ground
behind, and stumping came into fashion. In full prac-
tice, which was conducted with the same solemnity as a
match, all notches had to be run, and any one who did
not score six notches paid twopence fine towards the
expenses of bats, balls, &c., and the man who was out
took the place in the field of the man whose turn it was
to come in. The twopenny fine excited the wicket-keeper
and his mates to be very sharp and active, as all had an
eye to a place in the eleven for a grand match, and
they were always selected according to their smartness
in practice. (How are they selected now in some of
44 The Game of Cricket.
the clubs, and what is the qualification for the judges
beyond money, vulgarity, and ‘cheek’?) The pleasant,
healthy pastime of cricket became a great source of
amusement to the families and friends of the players,
and children and sons of old cricketers looked forward
to the day when they might be chosen a mate in a
match.
The localities in the neighbourhood of Hambledon
caught the spirit of the game, and cricket took deep
root in the parishes of West Meon, Horndean, Wick-
ham, Southwick, Fareham, Botley, Odiham, Liphook,
Betersfield, Porchester, Droxford, Titchfield, and spread
to the towns of Southampton, Winchester, Portsmouth,
Gosport, in the neighbouring counties of Wiltshire and
Berkshire, through Sussex into Kent. It was in Berk-
shire that the scene of Miss Mitford’s ‘Tales of Our
Village ' is laid.
* Mr. Woolgar, in some MS. notes, writes: ‘The advan-
tages of the game, as conducive to health and vigour,
soon introduced it into schools and colleges. Various
modes of delivering the ball were used, sometimes with a
slight jump as the ball left the hand, which occasionally
caused it to shoot into the wicket, instead of rising from
the pitch; sometimes an entire pitch was made at the
wicket, which might fairly lead to a catch if struck,
and sometimes a slow bowler was placed at one end in
contrasted change with a fast one at the other. In my
younger days there was a famous Sussex bowler named
Brown, of Emsworth (of course the well-known Brown
of Brighton, of Sussex history), so fast and swift that he
was the terror of batsmen. An opinion was formed that
the ball was jerked, so closely did his arm appear to
reach his side in delivery, and instances are recorded of
An Old Crickefer's Tale. 45
their marking his arm to ascertain if the colouring left
an impression on his side. [This custom prevailed when
I was at school.] As Emsworth in Sussex adjoined the
county of Hampshire, with its capital cricket-ground
called “Cold Harbour Lawn,” this terrific bowler Brown
frequently wrenched the victory from the popular
Hampshire eleven, and this rapid delivery becoming
more common, caused the introduction of paddings
and gauntlets, though I never saw such things in
my younger days.”
Stokes Bay, near Gosport, was the scene of Mr. Wool-
gar’s débùt, seventy years ago. It is a charming spot,
facing the Isle of Wight, and the parishioners played
on the green close to the Rectory on Sunday evenings;
and here, when a boy, he played as substitute for an
absent mate, and was placed as “bat's-end,’ as point
was always called, and distinguished himself, and be-
came a regular mate, having caught out a celebrated
hero on the opponents’ side, taking the ball almost off
his bat. -
[At Winchester, point was always called ‘off bat,’
until the introduction of cricket guides, &c., set the
fashion of uniform practice, and “point’ was substituted
for off bat.”
“The most marvellous catch I ever saw,” writes Mr.
Woolgar, “was at Stokes Bay, when a player by the
name of Jurd, a gardener at the Tectory, was playing
“long-field,” who, when a tremendous skyer was hit,
rightly judging its fall, made a desperate running jump
across a stream, and arrived in time to get under the
ball, and caught it.” [The reader may remember that
Mr. Pycroft records a similar catch made by an officer
46 The Game of Cricket.
in the Phoenix Park, who jumped some railings, and
actually caught the ball when in the air in transit.]
‘This Jurd was a favourite, and a good “all-round
man,” though small of stature, and, when he made a
good hit, the Hampshire lads of the village would roar
in their broad dialect: “Goo along, Jurd : run for a
week; they’ll never live to fetch her whoam.” Jurd was
a rare trencherman, and possibly a little over-eager to
take thought for the morrow, so to say. At a cricket
dinner, some mashed potatoes were browned and
“crimped ” into patterns tastily in small cakes. They
caught Jurd’s eye, and he somewhat greedily deposited
One or two alongside his plate, ready for his second
innings when he had done with his meat, thinking
they were pastry—which was Jurd’s weakness. Like
the fat boy in “Pickwick’ over a pork pie, he took a
loving bite, and, exploding with a mouthful of what he
had hoped to be a jam pie, blurted out : “Well, I’m
d d, if this 'ere ain’t tearturs arter all !””
During Mr. Woolgar's long stage career, which
commenced about sixty-five years ago, when on the
country theatrical circuits he never missed a chance
of playing cricket and mixing with cricketers, which
practice, beyond the pleasure which it gave him, was
very useful when he took a benefit, and he mixed with
some of the greatest men of the land; and now, in his
eighty-fifth year, he is quite as keen at it as the writer
of this paper. He remarks, with much truth, that it
strikes him that modern practice, SO called, is more a
pastime than a study of the science of the game; and
that, pending a match when a man is out, the good old
custom of throwing and catching, which was part of
the regular drill during a match, is almost wholly dis-
An Old Crickefer's Tale. 47
continued. He is by no means a rampant laudator
temporis acti, and fully admits the existence of the
cricket of the modern day, though he maintains, what
I perfectly believe, that the cricketers of the past made
fielding, throwing, and catching a constant study,
which brought it to very great perfection, and they
worked hard to acquire the greatest excellence, and
felt that the match depended on the unselfish exertion
of each for the common good, and that individual
excellence was thought much less of than victory—and
Mr. Woolgar is not far wrong. He assured me that
the straight bat was very carefully studied, and thought
as much of as now, and that wicket-keeper and long-
stop between them were very loth to give away a bye
—though some of the bowling was excessively quick,
and the fielding ground behind the wicket was not pre-
pared as now. *
There never was a man with a better memory; in
proof whereof, after a very long talk about the noble
game of the past and present, he gave us, in a voice
which would fill a theatre now, an admirable represen-
tation of the late Edmund Kean in a very long part of
One of Shakespeare’s plays, without hesitation, and ab–
solutely every word perfect. And so concluded one of
the pleasantest evenings which I have passed for many
a long day.
When an old gentleman is the representative of the
third generation of a family who were born and bred
either at or in the neighbourhood of Hambledon, and
well acquainted by oral information conveyed by father
to son of many particulars which are unrecorded in
books of the game, I thought it worth while to put on
paper a record of what is a family tradition ; and family
48 The Game of Cricket.
traditions which depend on “I heard my father say,”
or “My father told me that my grandfather told him,”
&c.—generally have a solid foundation of truth, par-
ticularly when the family had pretty much the same
local surroundings. Impressions made in younger days.
never wear off. I remember the first grand match I
ever saw, ‘Rent and Nottingham,’ at Town Malling, in
1837, much better than one out of many matches last
year, and early memories are the truest.
If any one has never had experience before any tri-
bunal about old boundaries, old rights, &c., he would
be surprised, On his first experience, to see how eager
the most astute judges and lawyers are to catch up the
words of old village patriarchs who “mind the time
when,’ &c.; and how telling is the evidence when two
or three of these old patriarchs agree as to matters of
fact. -
Note.-Mr. Woolgar died last year.
49
W. OUR COUNTRY CRICKET MATCH.
CHAPTER T.
ABOUT OURSELVISS AND OUR NEIGHIBOURS.
In the parish of Blank and county of Anywhere there
is about as beautiful a natural cricket-ground as could
be seen. Upon that ground, which is nothing more
than a large village green which has been drained and
levelled, numbers of cricketers of note, from the old
Iſambledon until the present day, have played from
time to time, and every little boy, from childhood almost,
imbibes the spirit of the grandest of old English sports
It is just one of these places where grey-headed old
men say—‘Ah ! the real times was when Squire Three-
bottle was alive, and we had two- and three-day matches
here, and Pilch and Lillywhite, and Box and Muster
Charles Taylor, &c., played, and the squire had his tent
on the green, and there was plenty of carriage company
and sooper at the “Green Lion” one night and the “Blue
Lamb” the next, regular goings on.’ ‘To be sure, Jem,”
remarks another octogenarian, ‘ and I minds the time
when George IV. were crowned, and the Ostler at the
“Green Lion ” were matched to wight the Flying Tinker,
and the ring were pitched where the Methodist chapel
now stands, and they wought for a purse of Sovereigns,
E
50 The Game of Cricket.
which the gentlemen subscribed and the ostler won.
Ah, mate, them were times | The old men are not
wrong; they were times, and good times too, and better
times in One sense than these times, because sports were
rare, and the pleasures of to-day did not tread on the heels
of the pleasures of to-morrow; and in country matches
the majority of the players growled if the first ball was
not bowled at 10 o’clock in the morning, and the supper
in the evening took the place of the midday dinner of
the present, and matches were played out under the old
fashion of six-ball overs, and no time wasted.
Fêtes and country sports wanted a deal of thought
and management, and the joys of anticipation were
almost equal to the fruition of the sports themselves.
People had to look before they leaped, as there were
heavy questions respecting finance and commissariat.
It would not do for the village innkeepers to kill the
fatted calf and to lay in barrels of beer, unless the ban-
queteers were pretty sure to come ; and, there being few
newspapers and no railways and telegraphs, it required
a fortnight’s notice in order to circulate the news
through neighbouring towns and villages that the
grand match was coming off.
Well, those days are gone for ever. Where is our
Teal game of cricket on great public grounds? Gone—
changed, turned inside out; unrecognisable almost as a
sport, too; in fact, often a matter-of-course pastime,
part of a week’s or season’s routine, occupying some
seven hours, with an hour's break for dinner; tainted
with egotism, carelessness, sometimes quarrelling, and
unpunctuality, and a strong leaning towards gate-
money.
But not always is it so, for as good sound cricket,
* Our Country Cricket Match. 51
heart-arid-Soul Sport, as ever was in olden days, can be
got now ; but, like a good pudding, it must be made
with good ingredients, and its thorough enjoyment can
Only be attained by those who worship the game for
the sake of the game, whose home is the village green
where it has been nurtured for a century.
It was by carefully selecting the real lovers of the
Sport that ‘ Our cricket match became a success. The
Origin of it was very simple, and it was as follows:
The principal innkeeper and a few good local players
inaugurated occasionally good out and home matches,
in the season, as a return for the benefit which they
derived during the year from those who supported the
game and did good to the house. The movement was
unconnected with any club, and the principle of it was
that the gentlemen and tradesmen’s sons who wished
to play, and who were efficient, should subscribe a small
sum, according to their means, towards the sinews of
war, and that we should have the best cricket and
greatest enjoyment practically for cost price.
“Our village club' was often a very unsatisfactory
affair. Season after season we started boldly in the
spring, with president, committee, treasurer, hon. Sec-
retary, &c., who made matches, passed resolutions, and
voted money like lions—but, alas ! many of whom paid
like lambs; anxious to play in home matches which
cost nothing, not so much as the cricket luncheon, if—
as some of them were—they were shabby enough to run
home to feed, and ‘bill:ed the landlord thereby, but
who were always “engaged if wanted for any out
match which cost a few shillings; and the blackest
sheep were often those who could best afford to pay.
And, moreover, at the end of the Season, when the bills
E 2
52 The Game of Cricket.
came in, it was the old, old story, and the few had to
bear the debts of the many, and were obliged to pay up
to save the credit of the parish. And so the glory of
the village club, which half a century ago was a bright
and shining light, flickered like a rush candle, blazing
out at intervals when some one devoted time and trouble
and money to it, bringing down real good elevens of
amateurs and professionals whose names were world-
known, until quarrels and the jealousies of malcontents
dragged its glory through the mud once more, and the
light went in and out like a lighthouse beacon.
And then probably arose a new dynasty which was
to set all things right, and a new party elected itself
and sponged on the neighbourhood under the name of
the old club, and tried to acquire quasi-respectability by
linking their names with the glories of the past, and,
as regarded real good cricket, left their patrons in the
lurch, and showed them nothing worth seeing. Our
village club, like too many, was wrecked by the change
in the world, the increase of population, increase of
money, plethora of cricket, love of newspaper glory;
and this change has been effectuated by those who lean
on the game instead of supporting it.
Our best eleven was a very miscellaneous lot—a few
amateurs, mostly public school and University men, a few
tradesmen’s sons, and a few players. It was not wholly
confined to the parish of Blank, as we sometimes got a
player or two from a neighbouring town or village, and
our opponents had the same privilege. Admission to our
ranks was easily obtained by any one who was a thorough
cricketer, but not otherwise. A thorough cricketer, if
an amateur, meant one who would contribute according
to his means to a fighting fund for each match, for we
Our Country Cricket Match. 53
never ran in debt, and everything was squared up be-
fore we parted. We cared not to play any eleven who
had not real good professional bowling, and the stronger
our opponents were the better we were pleased, for part
of our creed was to stand a good leather-hunt cheerfully,
and take a licking in perfect good humour; and the
consequence was that we often got a strong ally for a
future match from Our foes, or gave them a good recruit
or two in one of their coming battles. Although there
was plenty of true freemason spirit amongst us, there
was no vulgar familiarity of the ‘hail-fellow-well-met ’
and the ‘Tom,” “Dick,” or ‘Harry’ school. We all re-
spected each other, and kept our places; and possibly
as much fun, laughter, good-fellowship, and good cricket
existed in our little community as would be found any-
where in a long day’s march. We were ready to do
Our full share of the work unflinchingly, and were
equally at Our ease if sitting in a garden chair under
the trees, in the company of the biggest strawberry on
the top of the pottle, or on a turned-up bucket in deep
consultation with Mr. Chummy, who ‘swep’ all the
swells’ houses,’ and who was the best judge of cricket
in Our parish, and appeared at Our matches in his pro-
fessional clothes, “for fear of being called sudden for a
“chimly ’’ alight, which was a dollar in his pocket.’
Woe to the man who was caught Sulking, or who
was not up to time, or who was more anxious about his
innings than about victory ! That man would be safe
to have a court-martial held on him in the drag on the
way home, and might be sentenced to have his pipe
taken away and his tobacco divided amongst the others,
or even be restrained in his seat in the drag when the
horses rested, and be forced to sit still whilst the others
54 The Game of Cricket.
drank tankards of shandy-gaff, which he was not allowed
to taste until he became good-humoured and apologised,
when the hand of friendship was once more extended
and the past forgotten. So much for Our Society.
CHAPTER II.
THE COUNCIL OF WAR AND THE BEADLE's SENTIMENTs.
THERE is within twenty miles, as near as may be, of
Blank the town of Lethe, in a sleepy hollow shut in by
picturesque hills; so sleepy that, except on market days,
any one might fire a nine-pounder down the street pro-
bably without injuring a human being. Tethe looked
like a city of the dead; but there is close to the town a
public cricket-ground, where the natural turf was un-
surpassed on the plateau. But the ground sloped away
On three sides, so much so that long-leg and cover-point
were out of the batsman’s sight, and depended on short-
leg and point as signalmen when a hard hit was coming
their way. This is literally true. And the outside
was rough in parts, which made the fielding more diffi-
cult; and the Lethe men were justly noted for their
excellence when on the outside, and most deservedly so.
On that Lethe ground as many heroes of the past have
stood as on Blank cricket-ground. In fact, Blank and
Lethe were two hotbeds of cricket, and used formerly
to play an annual match, home and home; but, whether
from a quarrel or some other cause, they had not met
for ten years.
If it had been announced that the Boers had be-
Sieged Blank village green, and a message had been
Our Country Cricket Match. 55
received from the Foreign Office ordering the cricketers
to give up their bats and stumps and balls to the Flying
Dutchman pending an armistice, the astonishment
could not have been greater than when the landlord of
the “Green Lion' announced that he had made a match
against Lethe to come off in a fortnight, and had then
issued a summons for a council of war.
In accordance with the summons, there was as-
sembled in the landlord’s sanctum at the “Green Lion,”
a conclave, consisting of mine host, Jones, Brown, and
Robinson, three amateurs who had supported the old
village club, had paid up loyally for other people’s
cricket, and the king of men in the shape of an old player
about forty or a little over, who went by the name of
‘The Old Horse (in fact, like the Old Hambledons,
many players had nicknames), out of compliment to his
untiring power of work—a rare good all-round man,
steady bowler fair below the shoulder, a good bat, and
inimitable short-slip, as light hearted as a boy, and as
respectable as the Archbishop of Canterbury. One of
the council was Mr. Bumble, the beadle, the oldest
inhabitant amongst the cricketers, and a great autho-
rity because he knew the late Squire Threebottle; and
Mr. Bumble wore a nose on his face which was a credit
to the “Green Lion' liquor.
“Well, Mr. Jones,” said the landlord, ‘the match is
made, and what is to be done 9 °
* Play the match, pay for it, and win,’ was the re-
joinder.
“Just what Squire Threebottle used to say,” remarked
Mr. Bumble.
“And, cut in Robinson, “didn’t he say too, “Will
you have a glass of grog, Mr. Bumble P”
56 The Game of Cricket.
“His very words, Mr. Robinson ; and, when he said
it, the waiter always brought in a glass of hot brown
brandy and water, with three lumps of sugar. Here,
waiter | pay attention to Mr. Robinson’s remarks.’ And
Mr. Bumble scowled at the waiter, who displayed
symptoms of levity, and sat solemnly behind a long
churchwarden pipe with much dignity.
‘Now, landlord,” commenced Jones, ‘Brown and
Robinson and myself have had enough of paying for
other fellows’ cricket and that kind of thing, but we
don’t mind paying ten shillings each for an out-match
—if you will carry us out and home—and five shillings
for a home match; and if I was the landlord and you
were me, I should say to you, “Mr. Jones, if you and Mr.
Brown and Mr. Robinson will pay half-a-sovereign each,
and the other five amateurs, the tradesmen’s sons, who
are too proud to sponge on us, will pay five shillings each,
that will make up three pounds five.” Good Mind,
Imy boy—I’m talking to you again as landlord now—you
have a big wagonette, which goes to the races sometimes,
and that wagonette holds two on the box besides the
coachman, four on the back seat, and twelve inside—i.e.
eighteen personages in all. Our eleven and the umpire,
and the man who comes to look after the horses number
thirteen : ergo, there are five vacant seats, and I will
eat my hat and digest the buckle if we cannot find five
good men and true who will pay readily ten shillings
each for the ride out and home and the day in the
country, and then you have five guineas to the fore.
The gentlefolks are all away, and you have four horses
eating their heads off in the stable, and a set of four-in-
hand harness and a whip getting mouldy, and I look
On that five guineas as a providence—three for your
Our Country Cricket Match. 57
drag, and two to be divided between “The Old Horse ’’
here, “The Spider” (a rising cricketer), and little Joey
(a very good all-round man). Why, if it had been five
pounds six or five pounds four and tenpence, I would not
have looked at the money; but, as I said before, that
precise five guineas is a providence—there ! ” **
“Why, Mr. Jones,” exclaimed the landlord, ‘you
ought to have been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I
say “Done !” to that bargain, and will stand a bottle of
the old brown sherry to wet it.’
“Just what Squire Threebottle would have said,”
soliloquised Mr. Bumble. ‘I never in all my life heerd
more improving conversation.’
‘Particularly,” added Brown, “when I ask you to
wet tºother eye, Mr. Bumble. Here, waiter, another
mahogany, hot and sweet, for Mr. Bumble !” “But look,
landlord,” said Jones, ‘I don’t mind “standing out ’’ a
bit, and will pay all the same.” “And so will I,” “And I,’
remarked Brown and Robinson.
‘No, gentlemen,” returned the landlord, “not for the
world; I got up the match out of respect to you and
the other gentlemen who have supported real cricket,
and Mr. Jones must keep wicket, and Mr. Brown will
play point, and Mr. Robinson long-stop or mid-on.
Why, there would be no life without you three ; besides
which, if you three play, the curate at Lethe, an old
Marlborough gentleman, and an Oxford eleven gent
who is studying with him—as he says (pretty study, I
expect ; just as much as would suit you, Mr. Brown)
—will play too, and we shall have a jolly match, and
a very tight handicap it will be. “Now, Fred’ (to
‘The Old Horse’) tell us what eleven you will put
together.’
58 The Game of Cricket.
“Well, sir, there’s little Joe and the Spider and
me, Young Moreton with his slow lobs, the blacksmith
with the medium round-arm, and Mr. Jones, who bowls
a good ball—yes, you do, Mr. Jones. There are six
bowlers and plenty of change, and those six, with Mr.
Brown and Mr. Robinson, makes eight of us; Chips
the carpenter, nine; young Plums the grocer, ten;
and the wheelwright’s apprentice—I forget his name,
but a rare good one he is—and there’s the eleven.
Why, damme, if I don’t feel we are at it now, and win-
ning hand over hand, for see what a lot of young ones
we have l’
* Just what Squire Three
Chorus—‘ Order, Bumble; hold your tongue !’
“But,’ the landlord added, “Old Horse,” let us put
down three or four more names, and “block ’’ the eleven,
or some outsiders will try and creep in, and we won’t
have them.”
This was accordingly done, and the benefit of
‘blocking’ the eleven will appear hereafter.
“And how was the match made, landlord?”
‘You See, gentlemen, last Sunday my missus was
poorly, and I thought a drive would do her good, so
I took her over to Lethe, and went to the “Rampant
Bhinoceros,” and dined with my old friend who keeps
the house, and in the afternoon a lot of company came
into the parlour and began chaffing me about cricket,
and said that the Blank men were afraid to come and
meet their eleven. “How much are we afraid,” I asked 9
“I will lay you three ponies to two that we beat you if
we do come, and a sovereign level that you won’t take
the bet,” was the answer.
* “Will you make it three pounds to two three
9
Our Country Cricket Match. 59
times over, and lay me a level sovereign that I don’t
take the bet 9 ° .
* “Yes,” he replied. ---
* “Done along of you, butcher,” I said, “and hand
over the sovereign,” which he did, Sure enough. Then
my friend sent for the secretary of the Lethe Club, and
he made the match. Now I have given away one bet to
the landlord of the “Rampant Rhinoceros,” who knows
that I should not make a foolish bet, and half of
another to my son, and if you, gentlemen, like to take
up the third, it is yours.” -
‘We’ll have it,” said Robinson, always of a practical
turn of mind, ‘and give it to the players if they will
come and practise with us four nights before the
match—next Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the
Monday following. What says the ancient quadruped 9”
“Do it? Of course we will,” replied the O.H. ; “and,
gentlemen, I feel as if one of those sovereigns was in
my pocket if we begin with this pluck. What say you,
Mr. Bumble 9 °
“I say as I said before, that I never heerd such im-
proving conversation, gentlemen.’
And so our eleven settled quietly down to work on
the following Monday, and the O.H. had pitched a
beautiful wicket, as for a match ; and most of the other
Imembers came out—no nets—and we all worked as if
we had been playing at Lethe against their eleven, and
on the succeeding Monday we felt that we had improved
wonderfully, as we had played hard together, and knew
each other’s game, and were at home in the field.
We were having a final polish on the eventful
evening before the match, when up comes Mr. Smigger,
the son of a very rich man, who used to dole out a
60 The Game of Cricket.
reluctant sovereign to the club—when he belonged to
it—once a year, and expected young Snigger to play
in every match for the money.
“I say, Fred,’ remarked Snigger to the O.H., “I
have seen Chips, who is doubtful about going to-morrow,
and I have told him that I will take his place and pay
the five shillings, and —”
‘Beg your pardon, Mr. Snigger, but there are three
names down for a vacancy.’
“But I belong to the club, and two of these three
live out of Blank, and you can’t call it the Blank Eleven;
it’s all humbug.”
* Beg your pardon again, Mr. Snigger,” said the
landlord, “but I have made this match, and we have
found our own money, and must really do as we please,
and we have nothing to do with the club, sir; and if
you will excuse me, sir, this isn’t your business.’
So Snigger went away, growling and swearing, and
sought out some spirits of his own kidney, and ran
down the match and the eleven, and spoke of Jones,
Brown, and Robinson as “three pothouse cads” who
liked low company, and in their heart of hearts the
Snigger division wished us all the bad luck in the world,
and hoped it would turn out a pouring wet day.
CHAPTER III.
THE JOURNEY DOWN AND THE FIRST INNINGS.
THE prayers of Snigger were unheard, and every one of
the eleven—and doubtless they all did—who threw up
his window and took stock of the weather, at daybreak,
Our Country Cricket Match. 61
beheld as splendid a morning on the day of the match
as ever came out of the heavens, with a moral certainty
of its lasting all day.
No man can enjoy play who does not work. I can-
not imagine a greater infliction than having nothing
to do. But what more glorious sensation is there than
waking up with a consciousness that you have nothing
to do for one day but to go some twenty miles away
in a good four-in-hand with a party of light-hearted
cricketers, with a cornet-player at full blast, and
a stiff match in prospect 9 What a blessing it is to
substitute flannel for broadcloth, a straw hat for a
chimney-pot, to feel yourself well aloft behind four
good horses, to receive the hearty “good-bye ’ and “good
luck’ from your ordinary fellow-passengers, who are
waiting at the railway train for their, not your (to-day),
‘ daily bread’ train | By the Lord Harry the older
One gets the greater the pleasure. Every man was at
his post at 8.30 opposite the ‘Green Lion.” Cricket
bags were counted and packed, and, with many hand-
shakings and some sound sentiments delivered by Mr.
Bumble, the cheery words “all right’ were heard, and
we were off. We pull up for a moment at the outskirts,
when the ‘stoker’—great character, and a Nottingham
man, therefore cricket-mad—who works the engine at
a factory hands up four boxes of carrier-pigeons—
for do you suppose that we ever go out without our
pigeons? Never ! Why the people left behind are like
the inhabitants at Brussels in 1815 awaiting the re-
sult of Waterloo, and thirsty for the news.
* Good-bye, gentlemen—good luck l’ says the stoker
as he hands up the messengers. “I have put everything
in the world, down to my shirt and the old woman’s
62 The Game of Cricket.
“shimmy,” on you—mind you win They want the first
pigeon to know who wins the toss, and who goes in
first. One after the first “innards,” and one after the
Inext “innards '' to say you have won on the first hands,
and one more with the totals at the finish; ? and the
stoker stood and waved his cap as long as we were in
sight.
We entered Lethe punctually at eleven o’clock, the
time named, with the cornet playing ‘So early in the
morning.’
Lethe quite awoke for once, and at least three
different citizens looked out at their doors, and our
drag was surrounded by an inquiring throng taking
stock of us. “Hulloa, l’ exclaimed the O.H., shaking
hands with a short and thick-set man in unmistakable
player’s flannels, ‘Farmer Allen you here !”; and,
turning to us, ‘We have a warm customer here,
gentlemen.”
This “ Farmer 'Allen (the farmer being a nickname)
was a hot customer. He never played for any county,
though much better than many who do. He was burnt
as brown as a brick, with a quick blue eye, and a ruddy
open face. No one knew exactly what he was, or
exactly where he lived. Sometimes he worked in a
stack-yard, sometimes did some hedge-carpenter's job
fencing, sometimes hay-making or harvesting; but he
was a rare cricketer all over, turning up at matches in
the county anywhere, walking ten or a dozen miles out
and home to matches, bowling all day if wanted, and
no part in the field came amiss, and, moreover, he would
hit to leg nearly as well as George Parr.
“And who have you with you, Farmer, eh?”
‘Oh, a pretty good party: the curate and the
Our Country Cricket Match. 63
Oxford eleven gent, and another Oxford gent in the
eleven too, and the young butcher, and Ned at the
“Globe,” and the gardener’s son, and Bob Slinger, and
some of the old lot—a pretty tidy lot, I reckon.”
Then we felt that we were in for it.
“Well, gentlemen,” said the O.H., ‘if we beat this
party we shall do well; but we shall only win on the
post if we do. I think, Mr. Jones, we had better just
have a mouthful of bread and cheese and a fresh let-
tuce and One glass of ale, and go up and have a look
at the ground, for they won’t begin till twelve, I know.’
It was a beautiful wicket, real short down turf and
“springy,’ as true as a die, without an atom to
choose at either end. We inspected the outfielding,
and took stock of our place of combat. “Now, no
larking, gentlemen,” said the O. H.; ‘just let little Joe
and me and young Moreton and the Spider give you a
dozen balls each to get your eye in, and then we can
see some of their practice, for there is a good deal in
that.”
We thought it better to take our preliminary canter
before the foe arrived, and the curate and the two
Oxonians had some practice to Farmer Allen and
Slinger, who was very much a la Sir Frederick Bathurst,
with a quick, lowish delivery, and deadly and straight.
They were all ‘workmen,” as we could see, and a tough
job, clearly, was cut out. The eleven straggled in, and
were all there a little before twelve, and at the time for
beginning half the town had cut work.
* Come here, you young rascal,’ said the barber to
his apprentice, who was skulking behind a booth;
‘what business have you here?”
* Come to see them begin, sir.’
64 The Game of Cricket.
“Well, if you have locked the shop, come and sit by
me, and don’t skulk; you may have a holiday.”
There were several ladies and gentlemen on horse-
back, and it was clear that the excitement was great.
At the end of the ground was an old-fashioned booth,
consisting of tarpaulin stretched over a standing frame-
work, and on benches of honour in front sat venerable
old men in smock-frocks and large hats of ages un-
lºnown ; some of them superannuated shepherds, with
superannuated old dogs, who were deaf as they were,
and who dozed and blinked in the sun; and if you
talked to those old men they all remembered the
glorious days when some local ‘Squire Threebottle,”
promoted the game, &c., &c., &c., and they sat and
smoked slow, and sent out almost invisible whiffs of
smoke occasionally. p
At a few minutes to twelve we tossed for innings.
[Mem:—We had come twenty miles, and were ready by
eleven o’clock—of this anon.] The O.H. cried right, and
we sent in Robinson and little Joe, a sturdy young
fellow, who had he been a horse would have been a
thoroughbred cob: he was a pocket Hercules, who
carried two sacks up a ladder at the mill for a bet.
Pigeon No. 1 off with the news to Blank.
The Lethe men came into the field looking as stiff
a lot as any cricketer would care to meet, and covered
as much ground as eleven men well could. Amongst
them was a short curly-headed young butcher, mulli
secundus at long-leg and cover-point. There was, too,
a tall dark wiry man with a lignum vitae face, and a
dash of gipsy blood in him, always in the right place
somewhere out in the long field; he had a kind of roving
commission to harass the foe according to the bowling.
Our Country Cricket Match. 65
If any cricketer remembers Tom Adams of Kent—the
Gipsy was just such another dangerous player. The
man was as quick as a hare at running or doubling,
with hands as safe as a rat-trap ; and whenever a batsman
saw a chance of a good crack at a medium-paced ball
to the on, or a good drive to the off, that Gipsy man
was there like a shadow of death on the wall. The
Curate and the two Oxonians were “all over the shop,”
as Fuller Pilch would have said; the wicket-keeper and
long-stop were first-rate; and considering that Farmer
Allen was seldom off the middle when bowling, with a
wonderful knack of concealing his pace, and that Slinger
with his low quick delivery kept on “wearying the
batsman on the leg stump, perhaps no batsmen ever
went in with less prospect of quick run-getting than
Our first adventurers, as every man in the out side was
a picked man who knew his work and could do it.
The first two overs came down on a pitch like a
billiard-table, the ground playing very quick, and were
quietly and confidently played.
‘That’s all right,” said the O. H., “a good steady
start. As long as we keep up the sticks, never mind
the runs, they will come presently. Provided that we
have no “run outs,” and no overthrows when we are in
the field, and hold our catches, I am very hopeful.”
Four or five maidens had come down, when little
Joe tried for first blood by slipping a ball cleverly under
his leg, and was on the start. -
“Stop where you are,” sang out his partner; and
luckily he spoke, as long-stop had cut across, picked up
the ball with his left, dropped it into his right, and
took a shot at the wicket, behind which point and cover
were backing up, and knocked it down,
F
66 The Game of Cricket.
‘Is he often taken as bad as that 9” asked little Joe
of the umpire.
Little Joe was more fortunate with the next ball
from the quick bowler, which came a little wide of the
leg, and he caught it full and true, and hit it right over
the whole field for five, and so opened the ball; and then
both batsmen went to work a little freer, but very
steadily, placing a ball here and there for one, varied
by an occasional two or possible three, and at the end
of forty minutes a ball just touched by Robinson’s bat
went into short-slip’s hand, and 19 appeared on the
telegraph board—no extras.
“There,” exclaimed a sturdy middle-aged farmer,
with a bright blue eye and honest face, ‘I call this
cricket—well played, young gentleman,” to Robinson.
“Ah, Mr. Broadbeans,’ sneered a democratic cobbler,
‘ always agin your own side, as usual.”
‘You are a liar, Bill Lapstone, and I tell 'ee so, and
I want our side to win as much as you do ; but I like to
see cricketers stand up like men to one another as this
young gentleman did, and play the game.’
The O. H., for once in his life, changed the order of
going in. “Mr. Jones,” he said, ‘I know you would as
soon go in No. 5 as No. 3, and I should like the Spider
to try and break Farmer Allen’s bowling, for until he is
hit he will keep on for a month, and we shan’t have
time to win at this pace if we could ; and I would sooner
lose than not play one innings each, and the risk is
worth trying on.’ And so the Spider, without pads or
gloves, went to meet his fate. Down comes the ball—
a fine pitched ball—right on the middle stump; in
rushes the Spider, and catches her a fair half volley
right over the bowler's head to the booth for four,
Our Country Cricket Match. 67
follows suit by a pull off the middle for three more, then
runs a sharp bye, when their long-stop shies at the
wicket, and nearly hits it, but happens to miss it, and
mid-off not expecting it, omits to back up, and three
are scored for an overthrow.
‘Why the blank did you not back up 2' asks the
wicket-keeper.
“And why the blank did he throw at the wicket?’
asks mid-off.
* Order, order,’ from the Curate.
Consultation ensues, and the Farmer is taken off.
‘The match is ours,’ says the O. H., “if they lose their
temper. Look there! the Farmer has gone off.”
The first ball of the next over, which Little Joe
receives, removes his bails, but he has done yeoman
service. Chips, the run stealer, follows him, and he
and the Spider make it lively, running short runs, and
stealing others. The Spider makes a grand off-drive,
but the Curate can just reach it, and the ball hits the
palm of his hand, and stops there. Jones succeeds,
and he and the carpenter go steadily along, the bowling
being frequently changed, and the runs at no time
coming very fast. Not to be prolix, Brown got a duck,
and so did the Grocer’s apprentice; the Blacksmith had
a good time of it. The O. H. at No. 9 played good
steady cricket, and kept his wicket up to the last, and
at 2.45 the side was out, and 127 appeared on the tele-
graph, with very few extras amongst them, obtained in
two hours and three quarters.
Second pigeon sent off, and dinner!
F 2
68 The Game of Cricket.
CHAPTER IV.
LETHE's FIRST INNINGS-IO, TRIUMPHE
OH that dinner Oh those blessed, and for ever lost,
three bob which were paid for that repast ! which con-
sisted of dry, fatless, sinewy boiled beef, as hard as the
sole of a boot, no potatoes, cucumbers, yellow at the
ends and bitter, as big as one’s arm, lettuces going to
seed, the worst ‘mottled soap cheese, soft crummy
bread, and beer (which was included) with which, as
Little Joe, our humorist, remarked, “they probably
washed the workhouse floor to kill the fleas.” It
reminded one of the banquet at the ‘Wedgebury’ (Wed-
nesbury) cocking:—
The beef, it was old and tough,
Of a bull that was baited to death;
Bonny Hyde got a lump in his throat,
That had like to have stopped his breath.
The thing we most prided ourselves upon at home
was our dinner, and Our foes always enjoyed it, as
gentlemen's gardeners sent vegetables and fruit and
flowers, and made a good show. The Curate could not
help smiling when some one remarked that it was a
pity he had taken the trouble to say grace over such
victuals. No matter, we came for cricket, not feasting.
At 3.15 we went into the field, the O. H. and Tittle Joe
bowling, Jones at the wicket, the Blacksmith long-stop,
Brown point, and the rest distributed in their places.
The Oxford pupil and my Gipsy friend went first. The
latter is usually called ‘the fatal block,” who, without
any particular form with the bat, is a regular stone wall
Our Country Cricket Match. 69
to any bowler. The Oxonian was soon very busy, driv-
ing and cutting with that free style which height and
constant practice against all the best men in England,
plus the advantage of youth, can only give. His partner
pottered away with an occasional One, and, to Our Sur-
prise, 25 appeared on the telegraph in less than twenty
minutes.
The O. H. Scratched his head, called the Spider to
Little Joe’s end, and young Moreton with the slows to his
own. Neither batsman favoured the slows much, for
they were very good, as was the fielding, and there was
much of Smart throwing at the wicket and backing up,
if the batsmen tried sneaking runs off the slows. Still
the runs got up to over thirty without a wicket, when
the Oxonian caught hold of one of the Spider’s quick leg
balls, a clean and fair and square leg-hit, which George
Parr might have been proud of, not three feet off the
ground, with a fifty yards drop and a tremendous break,
and ran his first run like a lamplighter; and as he
shouted “Yes, another,’ and turned, the ball came full
into the palm of Little Joe at his fullest stretch, close
to the ground, at the finish of the first bound. “Let
me have her, Joe,’ roared the wicket-keeper, and before
the words were out of his mouth she was coming quick
enough, and straight enough too, for Little Joe as he
handled the ball, with his left heel well against the
ground like the athlete with a sling, had sent her
straight home, with a low throw and long bound right to
the bails. Hard lines for the batsman, but it was a bril-
liant run out. The Curate took his pupil’s place, and
luck was again with us, as after playing one ball of the
Spider’s well down there came another to leg a little
shorter and slower, and he hit too quick, and instead of
70 The Game of Cricket.
going out of the field, as it might have done, it went up a
tremendous rocketer. ‘ Let me come, let me come ! I
have her, I have her shrieked mid-off in agony. It
really was properly a catch for short-leg or bowler to
run to, but mid-off had his back to the Sun, and had
sighted her, and he never missed a ball hardly, and
they made way for him, and he dashed across the
wicket at such a pace that he ran four or five yards
ball in hand before he could throw her up. It was a
catch, and no mistake.
The other Oxonian followed, and ran into double
figures by quick and good play, when the slow bowler
gave him one which, as the former humorously said,
‘stopped, spun, hopped up like a galvanised egg, barked
like a dog, and rolled into my wicket.’ It was a curly
OIlé.
Inter Farmer Allen on the debatable ground.
‘Now,” said the O. H., “there will be a row ; these two
always quarrel, as they hate one another cordially,” and
so it was. The Farmer made a fine off-drive to deep
mid-off, very sharp and straight to him. “Come on,”
shouted the Gipsy. “No, no,” answered his partner.
* Come on, I say,” repeated the first speaker, who growled
and jawed at the Farmer ; and had he not forgotten to
‘make his ground, instead of standing six inches off it
blowing up the Farmer, wicket-keeper would not have
lifted off his bails and chucked the ball up as he did.
Like Achilles, the Gipsy—who with his stubborn defence
might have stayed all through the innings—returned in
dudgeon to the tent, especially as the ring were dead
against him, and he had no friends. Then came the
young Butcher, and he and the Farmer made a long
stand, and the bowling was changed again and again,
Our Country Cricket Match. 71
until wicket-keeper went on and bowled the Farmer
first ball; and there was a nasty total of ninety for five
wickets. The O. H. then declared for the slows, and he
was right, as the next comer was in two minds just
going to hit, and “bobbled' the ball into short-leg's
hands. In the same over the last ball took the suc-
cessor’s in-stump with a curly shooter. The Butcher
and the tenth man ran the score to 109, when the
latter's wicket fell—and then came the tug of war. The
last man, whom we may name Jealous, was a very good
bat and all-round player, but he had run so many men
Out that he had to go last, which limited him for a cer-
tainty to not more than one ‘run out.” Here was a
Council of war, and the O. H. putting on the Blacksmith
first with the medium break backs, with the field well
Out, and the Spider, who was deadly straight at express
pace, next—the Blacksmith, with a man covering the
booth, undertaking to stop the Spider at six yards
behind the wicket in the first or second bound, after his
Own Over, as the ground was rough behind him.
The crowd now was very great, and there was really
a large ring, for the Tondon division had all returned.
It was within fifteen minutes of the time, and there
was a fair chance of a draw, if not a win for Lethe, as
the Butcher was well set, and the last man was very
good. But the Butcher was a “man” from the crown
of his head to his boots, and meant winning or losing
and no draw. He rushed in, and lifted the first ball
from the Blacksmith for five amidst a hurricane of
applause, then ran a sharp leg bye, succeeded by a two
well played, and a three to follow, and got the next
over, the Butcher having scored eleven runs in one over,
so there were only seven runs wanted. A bet of a
72 The Game of Cricket.
sovereign to nothing that we lost the match was then
given to the Spider, and ten shillings to nothing out
of the club’s funds.
Then came the Spider’s turn. He sent down the
first ball like a flash of lightning well on to the bails,
which the Butcher played carefully back into the middle.
* Come on,’ shouted his partner, anxious to get the
ball, running nearly halfway down himselſ.
“Go back, you d idiot, or you will run me out,’
replied the Butcher.
Even the Parson might have shrived him for that
remark. Again down came the same kind of ball, and
again the . Butcher played her carefully back to the
middle. Once more his partner dashed madly on to
make the run, but the Spider was after him like a
shadow, and picked up the ball between the batsman’s
legs, and, steadying himself for an instant, threw the
middle stump clean out of the ground, and the match
was over. As the O. H. prophesied, ‘we won by a few
runs—seven only—on the post.” These one-day matches
were always decided by the first innings.
Third pigeon, with message “Won by seven runs,”
sent up ; and fourth pigeon soon after, with totals and
number of extras on each side.
CHAPTER W.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
OH ! the joy of our victory over Lethe, no man but
one who was in the match could tell. The spectators
were awfully disappointed, and some of our foes were
Our Country Cricket Match. 73
rather bad losers; but the gentlemen were very gene-
rous about it, and acknowledged that we had won on
our merits, and the young Oxford pupil shook hands
with Little Joe over his brilliant bit of fielding. ‘Give
me an eleven out of those two sides, observed Farmer
Broadbeans, ‘and they can beat our County Eleven as
it now is.’ And he was not far wrong, for an eleven
from our two sides would not have been stale men, as
many are who play for counties—worn out by six days’
a week cricket; and we could have put in six or seven
young men under twenty-five years of age, all first-
class. The two “sulky' runs out lost our opponents
the match. The splendid captaincy of the “Old Horse’
won it for us.
Can I ever forget the tea to which we sat down
at the hotel where our drag was? There were all the
eggs, and bloaters, and haddocks, and muffins, and hot
buttered toast, and tea in the county. The Spider ate
seven eggs, besides endless muffins; but he was young
and growing, and I dare say most of us took our part,
for practically we had no dinner.
At 9 o'clock precisely the drag came round; but
where were our opponents? They should have come
and given us a cheer, but only the Oxonians and Farmer
Allen came and said good-bye. The rumour was that
the home parties had backed themselves pretty heavily.
On the way back we stopped for twenty minutes at the
next town to Lethe, Middle Town, and found all the
cricketers there waiting for the news, which was an-
nounced before our drawing up by the ‘Conquering
Hero,” which tune the cornet was loyally playing; and,
as Middle Town hated Lethe–naturally, as they were
rivals—we received a tremendous ovation, and, for the
74 The Game of Cricket.
first time that day, we “liquored up,” and we rather
astonished the natives by the amount of shandy-gaff
which we consumed. It was a glorious night, and a
happier party never sat behind four horses. The land-
lord at Blank had wisely asked leave of the police for
two extra hours that night, that the club might have
some supper, and we got back shortly after eleven, and
found an immense crowd on the village green to cheer
us, right up to the “Green Lion.” The Stoker was
answerable to the Inspector of Police for passing in
only members of the club after forbidden hours; and
the Inspector, who came himself to see that only
privileged people were there, dryly remarked ‘ that he
had no idea, how large our club was.”
‘This day would just have pleased Squire Three-
bottle, observed Mr. Bumble, who was sitting behind
his pipe in his own corner.
And now the story, such as it is, is told ; and every
incident is literally and absolutely true, especially the
finish of the match, which is recorded ball by ball, and
also the run out. All the incidents did not occur in one
match or in one place, but in two or three matches
played by elevens composed as ours was—namely, by
cricketers who did not know the meaning of jealousy,
and cared for nothing but victory honestly earned.
We may be right in theory or may be wrong, but our
theory is very simple, viz., that it is impossible to get
good cricket unless you have an eleven who play solely
for the game and not for themselves. Remember the
advice of the O. H. : ‘Mind, gentlemen, no overthrows
and no runs out, please.” There was no occasion to say,
“Back up ; it became part of our nature.
We believe that counties and clubs and villages are
Our Country Cricket Match. 75
going back in the sport, owing to jealousy, selfishness,
and favouritism. Whether the Australians came for
money purposes or not, we think that they set us a
good example by their admirable organisation and per-
fection of cricket drill. We say that the waste of time
by beginning late, even on Saturday afternoons, is
scandalous and wrong. We believe that in these days
clubs which bar professional players if they solicit sub-
Scriptions from the neighbourhood are impostors; that
captains who are greedy and selfish are prostituting
the game; that local tradesmen who insist on paying
their sons’ share of expenses set a noble example to
those in a higher sphere of life who try how cheap
they can get their cricket. And this is said not in a
carping spirit against the principle of county clubs
paying fair, and very fair, expenses to amateurs who
cannot afford to go a long distance from London. We
believe that no amateurs can captain an eleven without
thorough confidence in and co-operation with the pro-
fessionals; and that a cricket ‘snob is the worst of all
Snobs, especially when he arrives late in a dog-cart with
a self-satisfied smile on his face. Therefore, brother
cricketers, let us join hands over the dead bones of
cricket, and in the interest of counties try to revivify
them ; and let us swear an interminable war against the
mighty giant of selfishness, jealousy, and egotism in
the cricket-field, and stamp him out. For be assured
of this, that any captain who does not feel himself bound
in honour and by inclination to promote the happiness
of all, just as much as a real English gentleman does
when sitting at the end of his own table, is a nuisance
to himself and those about him; and, moreover, he will
lose more matches with a good eleven than a good cap-
76 The Game of Cricket.
tain will win with a second-rate one. So let our motto
be, ‘Win or lose in good temper, and fair play for all !’
and success to cricket. And let us compare public gate-
money cricket with our first-rate local matches. There
are matches and matches, and there are players and
players. The superiority of the good local cricket is
that the match is for the glory of victory only, regard-
less of average, on one occasional day; and no player's
bread or reputation depends on it, provided he tries his
very best. Most of these matches are decided by one
innings, and there is no time to procrastinate; and my
experience, which extends over very many years, always
has been that if one has happened to get at home with
the bowling against a strong country eleven, and begun
to be happy, on came two new bowlers, and, if they were
‘ collared,’ two more ; in fact, the strong country elevens
seldom venture their honour without at least six or
seven who can bowl. In proof of the disadvantage of
the contrary system I have seen a good country match
Tost through having a county bowler in the eleven who
happened to be at home for the day and bowled, and
who would not take himself off, and consequently bowled
the match away owing to conceit and jealousy. It is
almost invariably the case in well-managed matches at
home that if no wicket falls for twenty runs a change
is made at both ends. One of the greatest living
authorities on the game, writing to me about a county
not long since, said, ‘They lost all their matches by
dropped catches and want of change of bowling, through
allowing a man to go on bowling whilst forty or fifty
runs were scored.’
Again, a great source of strength in local matches
is the presence of retired professionals, a little gone-
Our Country Cricket Match. 77
by perhaps for six days’ cricket, but who are like lions
when wanted for a day match. It is their interest to
work hard and make themselves popular, as every one
is ready and willing to help a respectable man with
getting his family out in the world, buying cricket
things through him, and in a hundred different ways;
and, moreover, they enjoy a good match as much as a
schoolboy, and they make no end of friends and get
engagements amongst cricketers against whom they
play; in proof of which (speaking personally) I have
received twenty or thirty letters from all parts of
England, often before Christmas Day, and from schools
and colleges and both Universities for men to “coach,”
and have sent out lots of old and young professionals
too.
The raw material—i.e. the native talent, old and
young, in which I believe—used to be the material
from which county players came years ago, before we
were inundated with amateurs, as we now are, since all
schools have professionals to coach them. I am not
quite sure that there is not too much coaching and too
much restriction of natural talent amongst youngsters,
and very much doubt whether you would not get better
hitting talent if boys under fifteen were allowed to play
their own matches, and were prohibited from using a
net, and were made to bowl and field for themselves.
They would be sure to copy their betters. Why I think
that much county cricket is tame is because you seldom
see young fellows who have a quick eye run in to hit.
They think it not ‘county form.” The gift of hard
hitting is rare.
My last word is this: the best school for cricket is a
village match, and village-green practice, uncontami-
78 The Game of Cricket.
nated by the presence of “bumptious and inefficient
amateurs,” who want to go in first and skim the cream
of the game. Those who work hard in these matches,
after a little coaching by a good player, if they have a
big heart (otherwise they are useless), are surprised
later on to find that playing in first-rate county matches
is the easiest thing in the world, because the grounds
are so perfect, and the bowling is often so true, that
they get “set before they know it. Mr. Felix wrote,
“The best preparation for punishing a loose ball is
to be thoroughly prepared for defence. Take care of
your wicket, and the runs will come of themselves.” I
would sooner have a first-rate amateur than a player
of equal value in an eleven ; for if he is first-rate the
professionals look up to and respect him, and he re-
spects them, as ‘brother cricketers,’ and not as paid
servants.
The ‘Doctor’s ’ throne has never been disputed by
any one outside Bedlam; and I will conclude this
chapter by bracketing three amateurs of different ages
as ‘aequales”—each of whom, as “a man on a side,”
has never been surpassed by any professional, living
or dead. Their names are the late Mr. C. G. Taylor,
of Sussex, Mr. W. E. Walker, and Mr. A. G. Steel; and
I think the Hon. A. Lyttelton as captain, batsman,
and wicket-keeper, at his best was never surpassed.
79
WI. SCRAPS FROM OLD SUPPER-TABLES.
‘IT’s all along of the railways and telegraphs,” but
* merrie England’ is “ merrie England” no more. There
used to be in rural districts five grades of people:—
1. The county people, under which name are included
the landed gentry and clergy; 2. The farmers; 3. The
tradesmen; and 4. Handicraftsmen, which included the
wheelwrights, blacksmiths, and that lot. 5. The agricul-
rural labourers, who were called the cottagers.
Ladies sketched the rustic cottages covered with
woodbine, and people wrote songs about ‘the peasantry
of England, so merry and so free; but in many parishes
the labourers, especially the ploughboy ‘who whistled
o'er the lea,” were very little removed from animals as
regarded intellectual amusements. There was one
thing they could do, which was to make very good
soldiers. They were not much educated, but believed
hugely in the gallows as an institution, and warned bad
boys that they would “ come to the gallows' for any
crime, whether it was upsetting a milk-can or robbing
an orchard, although the gallows as an institution only
existed for murder during the reign of Queen Victoria.
Though I have a horror of agitators of every kind,
because they point out grievances without suggesting a
remedy, I cannot help thinking that in the ‘merrie
80 The Game of Cricket.
England ’ of the past there was occasionally an incon-
venience or two which we do not get now ; such as
shockingly overcrowded cottages, filthy ditches running
into wells, a putrid fever or two, and children brought
up without any education, except what the parson might
give them at Sunday school. In short, those who wore
broadcloth had most of the fun, and that fun is much
stopped in these days of railways and telegraphs, as
caste has been much abolished, and the small village
shop has become a ‘store’; small farms are thrown into
one, occupied by a tenant who has his ten or twenty
thousand pounds, and farms scientifically, and uses
steam machinery; the manor-house is occupied by
some millionaire, vice the old squire, whose purse has
run out; footpaths are stopped up and game-preserving
carried on to a vulgar extent; and the whole parish is
so enlightened that the inhabitants are never thrown
on their own resources for an evening’s amusement, but
take their pleasures independently.
. Given a country cricket match very many years back,
with a running match afterwards, and with a supper in
the evening. Cricket matches have been described often
enough ; so let us suppose that the parson or the squire
has given a lamb, as was often the case, towards the
cricket supper, and that the Supper is to be a village
feast. Let us suppose that a friend or two from Tondon
are staying at the squire's—for instance, nephews or
sons of the county member—and that the parson’s son
plays in the match, and that they all intimate their
intention of coming to supper. Putting these supposi-
tions together and accepting them as facts, we can
imagine the big club-room at the ‘Chequers,’ a long table
making a T laid out for a party of fifty or sixty, well
Scraps from Old Supper-tables. 81
spread with beef, mutton—especially boiled legs of
mutton and trimmings—an immense piece of veal well
browned, with any amount of stuffing, flanked by a
colossal ham, any quantity of vegetables, and alongside
of every man’s plate a black-handled knife (which would
take a long time to commit a murder with) and steel fork
(possibly two-pronged), and a good lump of farmhouse
bread, which alone would provide a meal for a hungry
1118,11. -
Our big room at the ‘Chequers' was a noble room,
with a fine gallery of pictures. There was a picture of
the Princess Charlotte and her husband, in full Court
dress, walking along a serpentine gravel path towards
a castle, according to perspective about five feet high,
and preceded by an Italian greyhound of twelve hands
Or thereabouts, with a blue ribbon round his neck.
Abraham is represented as offering up Isaac in One
corner, and a ram about the size of a Shetland pony is
butting at the Patriarch. St. Paul, in a bright scarlet
dressing-gown, is preaching, and Eutychus, who has
fallen asleep during the sermon—a very reprehensible
thing to do, especially considering who the preacher
was—is painted in a bright blue dressing-gown, taking
a header from the gallery straight on to the Apostle,
who appears happily unconscious of his fate; and
underneath are explanatory words—
And a certain young man when reclining his head
Fell asleep while Paul preached, and was taken up dead.
On the opposite wall is a large woodcut of the execu-
tion of the Cato Street Conspirators, with a gentleman
in one corner holding out a head in one hand and a
knife in the other. Then there is a portrait of the
G.
82 The Game of Cricket.
landlord—a portly man, with well-oiled hair and
whiskers, represented with a brooch in his shirt-frill,
a long clay pipe, with red sealing-wax on it, in his
mouth, held by a fat, broad hand, on the forefinger of
which is a ring as big as a gooseberry. Observe the
glass of grog on the table, and the accurate representa-
tion of the spoon and the sugar at the bottom of the
glass. And opposite to the landlord is a portrait of the
landlady—a stout person in a red silk dress, set off by
an enormous gold watch and chain ; and I am sure,
had the watch been a repeater, she must have shaken
all over when it struck. There was food for the mind
as well as for the body; and, mind you, the two
portraits were by our native plumber and glazier, who
was also a portrait-painter.
Just as we are ready, the parson looks in for a
moment and says grace, and wishes the company a
pleasant evening, and refuses all solicitations to stay,
on the excuse of urgent business—the real fact being
that he is afraid of being a wet blanket. The clatter
of knives and forks begins, and again and again the
sturdy guests attack the viands, from roast beef to
veal and ham, and back again to boiled leg and trim-
mings.
‘Butcher’ (the u pronounced as u in Duchess), says
Farmer Broadbeans, ‘T ne’er struck my foork in a
tenderer bit of beef than this here.”
‘Well, Warmer, I am main pleased that you like she,
for as I was a -driving that bullock home last Zaturday
I thought to myself, “My boy, you will make a good
lining for some of them cricketers next week.””
‘A bit moore, if you please, sir,’ says the black-
smith to a carver who does not understand a black-
Scraps from Old Supper-tables. 83
Smith’s appetite; and don’t you be aveard of cutting
it wi' a heavy hand, for I be main hungry.’
Then comes a voice from the end of the table :
“I say, neighbour, I’ll stand a bottle of red poort
wine if you’ll pay for a bottle of white sherry wine.”
* Done along to you, neighbour. Here, landlord,
bring a bottle of red poort and a bottle of white sherry
wine.”
Oh! when merrie England was merrie England of
the past, there were Ostrich-stomached men who could
digest the ‘red poort wine’ at the ‘Chequers.’ I think
the breed has died out, for in these degenerate days
Our livers will not stand sound old port even, and we fall
back on claret.
The cloth is removed after an onslaught on pies,
puddings, tarts, and huge blocks of very strong cheese,
helped down with about half a large cucumber to each
guest, eaten like an apple by many of them, rind and
all. The gentlemen present, from the squire’s, order a
dozen of wine, for the good of the house, in the squire’s
name; stacks of pipes are put on the table, and the
business of the evening begins.
We can all imagine the usual loyal toasts, including
the ‘Church,” for which the parish clerk returns thanks,
and is a little angry when the barber—by no means
a frequent church attendant on Sundays—pronounces
a solemn “Amen” as the speaker sits down ; and the
“Navy, for which “Captain Hawks,” who owns two barges
On the canal, is called upon, and says very gravely ‘that
if there should ever be an invasion there is not a barge-
owner in England who would not carry soldiers or
munitions of war, or anything else.”
But our business did not fairly begin until the general
G 2
8ſ. The Game of Cricket.
public—the gamekeepers, coachmen, grooms, &c., from
the great house, who had not been at dinner—were
admitted, and the singing began. We had songs full of
love, and war, and hunting, proceeding out of the most
unlikely mouths. Farmer Twenty-stone, who, as any one
would suppose, would sing in praise of roast beef and
fat cattle, warbled in the smallest falsetto a liberal offer
that “he’d give all the wealth in the world fo-o-or
Mai–1-y the ma-a-id of the mill’; and the little asth-
matic, deformed barber, who looked unable to launch a
child’s boat, with much patriotism and imaginative
bravery called on the company to “man the lifeboat.”
One of the young gentlemen, with a good baritone
voice, sang a grand old song dear to the inimitable
Evans, of Evans's, Covent Garden—and who could sing
the songs of what Mr. Thackeray called the old brandy-
and-water school better than old Evans could P−" Oh,
if I had a thousand a year, Gaffer Green,”—and brought
down the house with the last verse, which requires a
deal of nerve to sing well, and which is usually sung in
a somewhat higher key than the other verses, and the
singer may put in a flourish or two, according to taste.
There’s a world that is better than this, Robin Rough
And I hope in my heart you’ll go there,
Where the poor man’s as great though he had here no estate,
Ay, as if he'd had a thousand a year,
Robin Rough,
Ay, as if he'd had a thousand a year.
Possibly the applause put the landlord on his mettle
to bring out his stock piece, which was a duet between
One of the tradesmen and the postman—
Arcades ambo,
Et cantare pares, et respondere parati,
Scraps from Old Supper-tables. 85
It was a hunting song, and the whole power is in the
finish. This is worth a tableau.
Dramatis Persona : The postman (the Lenor) and the
grocer (the second) on opposite sides of the table; the
landlord standing behind the chairman, beating time
with a pipe to a song sung in good time and with much
feeling, though tainted with provincialisms. We all
know the refrain of the old song.
Postman. “When the ’untsman *
Grocer. “When the ’untsman *
Together. “When the 'untsman is winding horf is
orn ?
Landlord (gesticulating violently). “Take the time
from me, Jack.’
Together (con spirito):
“When the 'untsman is winding horf his 'o-o-oorn
“When the 'untsman is wind-d-ding hor-rf is 'orn.”
And then, and not till the song was finished, the
chorus was common property, and, led by the landlord,
we all paid proper respect to the “Huntsman and his
Horn' in full blast.
But there were sentimental ditties in those days,
sung with the broadest country accent ; and as I have
observed that people are not very particular now in prac-
tically adapting things, without any acknowledgment,
which others have written, I will be more honest, and
say that I borrow from Mr. Punch a ditty which I com-
piled for him from memory of similar ditties, and which
appeared in a series of articles called ‘The Hawthorn
Correspondence,” which I wrote for Mr. P. in 1857 when
Mark Lemon was Consul. The ditty was put in the black-
smith’s mouth, and it was a blacksmith whom I heard
sing something like it, ever so long before that time.
2
86 The Game of Cricket.
'Twas in the merry month of May,
The birds were zingun on the le-e-e-ea,
When fust I see the lovely Molly
Oonderneuth the moolberry tree-e."
I axed her if she would be trew,
“Oh yes, I will,’ says she to me :
A bit of goold we broke in two
Oonderneuth the moolberry tree.
'Twas on a dark December night,
When Molly came across the moor,
The Znow fell fast and hid the light,
And Molly missed the cottage door.
We wound poor Molly cold and dead,
A shockin’ zight it were to see
We put a stone above her head,
Oonderneuth the moolberry tree.
The maids wi' May-day garlands come,
All out of love to she and me :
And strew wi' flowers poor Molly's home,
Oonderneuth the moolberry tree.
But I am not sure that one of the Whips did not
take the palm with an old hunting song, which I have
never seen yet in print; and I only wish I could impart
the tune, which goes with a good swing and a chorus.
The sun is arising all over the hill,
And the ploughboy is whistling as he goes along the field,
Tally ho l hark away ! Tally hol hark away !
Tally hol tally ho tally ho hark away !
There was a good deal in it about ‘ the blackbird
whistling so sweetly on the spray,” and about ‘little
Davy with his musical horn,” each verse concluding
with a ringing tally-ho chorus which made the old
rafters shake again.
* As pronounced passim at the end of each cadence.
Scraps from Old Supper-tables. 87
“Tom the Tinker’ was another quaint ditty, which
was dear to the gardener. I have heard scraps of it in
many places, and I fancy it had some political meaning
in the old days, as it is found in all districts in the
south and west of England—especially in the hill
districts—where the Royalists and Puritans fought.
The song is a vehicle for introducing any number of
characters into a tavern kept by one ‘Joan '; and how-
ever different the words of the song may be, ‘Tom the
Tinker,” “Joan the Landlady,’ and ‘‘the valiant soldier”
are prominent characters. Evempli gratia :
In come the valiant soldier,
I never see a boldier,
Wi’a virelock over his shouldier,
And a long, broad swo-o-rd he drew :
He throwed his swo-o-rd and his musket by,
And vowed he'd drink the zellar dry,
And Tom Tinker's health he'd ne'er deny,
For Joan's ail were new, my brave boys,
For Joan’s ail were new.
This song was commonly an excuse for a little
personal joke, and Our village wag, to the great amuse-
ment of the local constables, took the opportunity
of congratulating the new inspector of police, a very
proper man, whose name was Percher, on his appoint-
lment, in an impromptu encore verse—
In come Inspector Percher,
And he was as sharp as a lurcher;
He come there tew to be merry
Along o' the jovial crew.
He said his duty were a bore ;
They gave him some drink, and he asked for more,
And he kissed the cook behind the do-or,
For Joan's ail, &c. &c.
I often think that a collection of traditional ballads
88 The Game of Cricket.
and carols from all parts of England would be amusing,
and instructive also.
But besides these things, we could manage many of
the grand old English songs remarkably well. It was
a treat to hear our landlord sing “Tom Bowling,” though
he left out the h in ‘hulk” and styled himself a
‘sheer 'ulk’; and I would have backed the carpenter
and one of our farmers in ‘Good-night, all’s well’
against many professionals. The tax-gatherer, too, who
always swore a truce at our merry meetings, was sure
of a rapturous encore in the “Old English Gentleman,’
as, in the first place, he sang the song uncommonly
well, and secondly, a large number of the party probably
owed him money for rates and taxes, and of course
they applauded accordingly.
But par excellence our local orator was the king of men
—a very well educated fellow indeed; had been a village
Schoolmaster, cavalry soldier, mob orator, preacher, and
a man who knew Shakespeare and the works of many
good authors by heart. It was no good inviting him or
not inviting him ; he meant coming in, and speaking
too ; and speak he did, and rare well too, jumping up,
800 motu, and proposing the captain of the eleven, the
squire's son, whom he had hardly ever seen before, as
the Orator had been away for years in India and else-
where. He described the captain as the pride of the
village, the first of his county, the fine young English
gentleman, with hopen 'eart and hopen and ; “and,
gentlemen,” he continued, ‘whilst we are waiting in
breathless hanxiety for the 'onied words which will fall
from his lips in thanking us for honouring ourselves by
honouring 'im, I will give you a recitation.” Seizing a
clean pipe from the table, he turned to a very fat-headed
Scraps from Old Supper-tables. 89
man, one of whose eyes had for a pupil a white ivory
knob, like the button which one pushes in in an electric
bell, and, presenting the pipe to him in both hands, he
burst out, to the utter amazement of the man whom he
addressed :—‘Mother, dearest mother, this gun, is it
not beautiful? I won the prize, mother,’ &c. &c. He
gave us a great part of the first scene of the ‘Lady of
Lyons,’ in which Claude Melnotte appears with a gun
in his hand; concluding with the garden Scene in
act 2:—
Nay, dearest, nay—if thou would have me paint
The home to which, could love fulfil its vows,
This hand would lead thee, listen, &c. &c.
|Heaven knows how long our orator would have
gone on, had not the one-eyed man dropped off to sleep
and snored very audibly, for which he was immediately
reproved for his want of manners by the Orator, who
called him “a huneducated 'og.”
The last I heard of the Orator was that he had got
three months for getting drunk and licking his mother;
so you see he was a man of variegated character. More-
over, he made a little mistake about a sovereign which
he received from the young captain, whom he had so
eulogised, shortly afterwards for the purpose of having
it changed, but the Orator disappeared for many months
and the sovereign was seen no more.
Possibly at the conclusion of some of these banquets
one or two might find themselves with ‘their straddling
stockings on on their way home ; but drunkenness was
the exception and not the rule ; and if any songs were a
little broader than they ought to be, the voice of the
company was generally dead against them.
Cui bono—this dry, disjointed story about a supper?
90 The Game of Cricket.
Well, this happens to be a cricket supper. It
might just as well have been a village hunting Supper,
or any other supper held in honour of any popular
village movement; for the company and the proceed-
ings were much the same at all such entertainments.
Before the world was all tied together by railways
and telegraphs, though caste was more defined than
now, occasionally all classes of people made a holiday
together. Much good was done by all so mixing together
Sometimes at the village inns; and as few but near
neighbours, men who lived within six or eight miles of
each other, were engaged in rural amusements, there
was never any hurry about going home : many rough
edges were rubbed off by friendly contact, quarrels
were made up, and good-fellowship established.
There are too many now upon whom prosperity has
fallen who forget that there is a very thin partition
between the small shopkeeper of thirty years ago and
themselves; their manners are not nearly so good, in
many cases, as their humbler ancestors, and their vul-
garity is much more apparent. The rich man, who
from intuition shoots his peas into his mouth with his
knife, either by the dagger-trick—swallowing his knife,
and taking a lane of peas off it, and bringing it out
clean without winking—or by whipping it across his
lips without spilling a pea, ; rattles his sovereigns; and
talks about his 'orses, the 'untsman, and the ‘ounds, is
just the kind of man who would allow his son to go
about London with any young scapegrace with a handle
to his name, but would not allow him to do such a vulgar
thing as to sit down with the village tradesmen and
cricketers at a local merrymaking. These are the men
who spend very little money in a place, but make a
Scraps from Old Supper-tables. 91
great show, getting everything they can cheap from
London. Money is their god, and they cringe to any
one with a title ; and, from over-anxiety not to do any-
thing which they think vulgar, they establish them-
selves as the British snobs, and prove their vulgarity.
One fact is better than a dozen theories. It must
be now more than twenty years ago—for it was at the
period when English girls took to straw hats once more
—that I was invited to a strawberry party and tea and
music, at the parsonage of a charming country village
where I rented a house during the summer months;
and it was the first time that I had seen a collection of
pretty girls in straw hats, so I remember the date.
It being a cricket-match supper night, I could not
get to the Parsonage till between nine and ten o’clock, as
the villagers had made me chairman for the evening, and
it would have been very bad manners to leave until the
toasts had been drunk and the singing well inaugurated.
On remarking to the clergyman’s wife, on my arrival,
that I had done all I could, by means of warm bath, &c.,
to counteract the fumes of between thirty and forty
pipes which were going at full blast at the ‘Chequers,”
a very rich lady, who had recently come into the
neighbourhood, and who was frightfully over-dressed,
remarked, ‘Have you been with all those low fellows
at the public-house 9 ° -
And the parson was down on her and no mistake,
and gave her to understand that the fact of a few
gentlemen joining in the village matches and attend-
ing the cricketers’ suppers had done more to what
he called ‘Christianise ’ the cricket, and to teach his
parishioners self-respect, than anything he knew, for he
was certain that community of interest in village sports,
92 The Game of Cricket.
and the social cricketers’ supper afterwards, promoted
good feeling and kindly fellowship, which were devoid
of riot or vulgarity.
And now see how true his words were. We had a
wind-up match in September, and on the Sunday the
same parson said to one or two of us who promoted the
cricket, “We have our harvest service on Tuesday even-
ing, and I hope that you and your households will
come '; and he added, ‘we shall have plenty of singing
and a very short service.”
We told him that he had chosen an unlucky day, as
the best match in the year was to be played on the
Tuesday, and it was impossible to alter it, for the eleven
against us were coming from a distance, and as the
church stood on the village green where the cricket
ground was we were afraid that the service would be
interrupted; whereupon he instantly changed the day
of the harvest service to the Thursday. On the Thurs-
day evening we were all playing cricket on the green,
and the bells struck up for church half an hour before
the time for service. On our suggesting that we should
draw the stumps at Once, as the parson had put off the
service for our match, and that it would be fair ‘to give
the parson an innings,’ a very large majority, who
‘cared for none of such things as a rule,’ went home
and smartened themselves up, and did give the parson
an innings, and went to the service.
If that parson had preached against cricket as a
snare for encouraging drunkenness and idleness, as
some shallow-pated men will insist on doing, his parish
would have been unbearable, instead of being, as it was,
a place of happiness and peace,
93
WII. CIRICKET HOMILIES.1
CHAPTER I.
I N T R O D U C T O R. Y.
THE raison d'être for these homilies is as follows: I
think lying awake of a night is the greatest of all
wastes of time; ergo, if I cannot sleep I scribble, and
the author now writes in bed at 3 o'clock A.M. Bred
up in the olden time, between 1835 and 1841, in the
strictest school for cricket discipline—Winchester—
where every boy had at least two seasons of cricket-
fagging, without touching a bat, before he reached the
second eleven, the value of hard work in the field and
order and energy in the match became part of my nature.
We were all striving for the blue ribbon of the game
—a place in ‘the Lord’s eleven –and when fortunate
enough to be elected, after years of servitude, our
cricket-fagging commenced again, as the eleven had to
go into the field at least twice a week for two hours,
and any of the masters who were good cricketers, and
the Officers from the barracks, batted, and stole short
runs and byes, if they could, to test us.
I fear, in a large number of matches of the present
* Note to the Editor by Dr. W. G. Grace : ‘I think these Homilies
are perfect—just the very thing that is wanted.’
94. The Game of Cricket.
day there are those who think of little but their bat-
ting and their average, and who are wrapped up in self.
These homilies are a kindly-meant invitation to young
cricketers to make cricket a school in which good
temper, self-denial, and good breeding may contribute
as much towards success as expertness in any particular
branch of the game.
Having sent my MS. just as written to my friend
T}r. Gilbert Grace, he was kind enough to write me a
letter, which my modesty forbids me to do more than
say that such a letter was written, and he asked, “What
do you mean to do with it?’ My answer was, ‘Dedi-
cate it to you if you will accept it.’ His reply was a
hearty acceptance of the offer, with a rider, ‘Publish it
in the “Boy’s Own Paper.””
No doubt more people have talked about Young’s
* Night Thoughts’ than those who have read the book.
The products of my night thoughts have won for me
more than I deserved, in the shape of the honour of
having Doctor W. G. as godfather to my Homilies. It
is charming to know that the Kent gentlemen sent the
pads of the late Mr. Alfred Mynn (my beau ideal of a
cricketer of the past) to Dr. Gilbert Grace—“my god-
father’ in this instance—as the only man worthy to
put on ‘the armour of Achilles.’
CHAPTER TI.
DUNCTUALITY AND OBEDIENCE.
I HAVE vowed to myself a solemn vow, my young
brethren, to do my best to perpetuate the memory of the
virtues of your ancestors, and put before you the examples
Cricket Homilies. 95
which we, the men in the sere and yellow leaf of cricket,
witnessed and still believe in. And I speak to young
players of all classes, individually and collectively.
In the first place, you cannot be too particular in
studying punctuality and obedience; and above all things
avoid trying to make yourself the conspicuous man. On
the ground.
Remember that you are one of eleven men who are
fighting a friendly battle, and the only chance of your
being useful is to give yourself up wholly to the business
before you—for to be a good sport cricket must be made
a business of.
Confining my first homily to two points only—
punctuality and obedience—remember that captains
have human passions and human tempers, and take it
from me that nothing is more unfair than for a cricketer
to put unnecessary weight on their shoulders. By the
word ‘ captain ' I mean a real cricketer who is fit for
the post, and who is heart and soul in winning—One
who will be last on the ground overnight, seeing the
finishing touch put to the wickets, and first there in the
morning, with an eye to anticipate anything which may
require to be done.
Put yourselves in his place, and fancy his disappoint-
ment when his opponents arrive on the ground at eleven
in the morning, having come perhaps off a fifteen or
twenty miles' journey, and finding him with only five or
six of his eleven round him; and fancy also what the
absolute loss to your side is by your disturbing and
irritating his temper at the moment when he requires
all his thoughts and energies for the coming contest.
And remember how much more irritating and annoy-
ing unpunctuality is in an out-match when you leave
96 The Game of Cricket.
the captain in doubt till the last moment whether he
is short of one or two men altogether.
And now turning to the virtue of obedience. A real
cricketer has no business to ask any questions as to why
he is placed nearer or farther off, sharper or squarer;
he is a fighting soldier, and must obey. A good captain
probably has discovered one or two weak points in the
batsman, and has planned some manoeuvre to outwit him
without his knowing it, and has perhaps conspired with
the bowler to “draw the batsman by giving him an off
or an on ball with an eye to a catch; and any disobedi-
ence or tardiness in the ‘field which occasions the
captain to call out to him discloses at once the ambush
which has been laid. Or, again, if the captain tells the
man who is going in at a critical period of the game to
let his partner, who is “well set,” have the ball, and if he
obeys, and sinks that wretched creature ‘self and runs
a sharp “bye’ at the last ball of the over and carries out
his captain’s orders, he has his reward at once in the
well-merited ‘Well run, sir,’ from the spectators, who
apppreciate his play; and he loses nothing in the long
run by the carefully noted execution of the orders of the
captain, who books him in his own mind as a man to
be trusted in another match of more importance.
And now, referring to your ancestors, take this from
me as a fact. The sole reason for the excellence of the
celebrated Kent and Sussex elevens very many years ago,
when the former was managed by Pilch and Wenman,
the latter by Mr. Charles Taylor and Box, and of the
grand Surrey eleven, who fairly played and beat All
England within the last five-and-twenty years, under
the late Mr. F. P. Miller, was because they worked
together like a piece of machinery. So it has been with
Cricket Homilies. 97
Yorkshire and Nottingham at their best. The same
cause has made Lancashire, Middlesex, and Gloucester-
shire such strong opponents, independently of the
exceptional talent in the last named, and has revived
the failing glories of Kent.
So, my young friends, bear this in mind ; “Punctual-
ity and obedience ’ are the mainsprings of cricket, and
so ends Homily No. 1.
CHAPTER TIT.
EATING, DRINKING, AND DRESS.
Now, taking it for granted that you, like all healthy
young Englishmen, have a tub every morning, let me
address you as you are standing in the buff rubbing
yourself down with a rough towel. I am assuming that
you are going to play in a match, and I will tell you
what to eat, drink, and what to avoid, and where withal
you should be clothed. And the last is the first neces-
sity, as you are in the buff, and it is usual to put on
your clothes before breakfast; and the third caution,
as to what to avoid, comes at the same time as the
last. Avoid uniforms and “loud' dress of all kinds.
Common sense and good taste are bringing men back to
better ways, and they begin to find out that Harlequin
shirts and thunder-and-lightning jackets could only
have been invented for the benefit of tailors and haber-
dashers.
The dark Oxford blue and the light Cambridge blue,
and the dark blue cap of Kent with the silver horse and
“Invicta,’ are all in good taste enough; but do not be
|H
98 The Game of Cricket.
a zebra or a spotted leopard, it is low. White is the
colour for a cricket-field, so put on your white flannel
suit when you have done rubbing yourself down. Above
all things, do not have anything next your body but
flannel or woollen, and have the waistband of your
trousers and pockets made of flannel. A linen lining
at the waist is just the thing to give you a chill when
you have been perspiring freely. In packing your bag
put in a second pair of flannels and dry woollem socks—
wholly woollen, mind—and shirt, and change before
coming home. That peculiar cold shiver which comes
over you when in damp clothes, in the cool of the even-
ing—no matter how strong you are—may do more mis-
chief in five minutes than weeks of nursing can cure,
and health is one of the greatest of God’s blessings.
And you shall have a piece of dandyism in, if you
wear a straw hat, and you may wear a broad ribbon,
provided it is a good ribbon, dark crimson or purple for
instance, not a sarcenet, which runs all kinds of colours,
and looks like the stuff they tie up cigars in ; and your
straw hat must be good and shapely, and not fit your
head like a beefsteak pudding. Nothing looks so
slovenly as a ‘shocking bad’ straw hat—and do not
forget this, that neatness is expected of a cricketer.
Eat a good mutton chop for breakfast, and if you
can do so with an appetite you may be sure that your
nerves and digestion are all right. Above all things
avoid early bitter beer, Smoking all the way down, and
practical joking. Be as jolly and high-spirited as you
please, but your whole mind ought to be in the match.
My experience of cricketers, my young friends, is, if you
ask me, that an enormous majority of English gentle-
men do not play cards in the train or on a drag on the
Cricket Homilies. 99
way to a match; and in a worldly point of view it is
wiser to back the man who is never without a pack of
cards than to play with him.
When you reach the enemy’s quarters do not be
content with just looking at the wicket, as if your own
innings was the sole object in coming out, but get a
good sight of the ground. If you are going long-stop
or long-leg and cover-point, or mid-off, or wherever it
may be, find out any difficulties in the ground and be
prepared for them ; and do not “lark’ in practice,
whatever you do. If you can get the chance of having
a dozen balls, take it, and get your eye in, but no sky-
larking. More fellows are hurt by humbugging about
with the ball than in all the matches. The grand point
is being cool and collected. There ought to be one idea,
in your mind, which is, that your eleven have come out
to win, and you mean doing it; and bear this in mind,
that the odds are a hundred to one against your win-
ning the match, but there is a very good chance, without
care, of your losing it by One piece of carelessness or
neglect ; and if, by sin of Omission or commission, you
let a man off who afterwards makes a long-score, and
you lose the match by a few runs, that sin of yours has
ruined your side. The loss is irreparable as regards
the past, as you cannot alter the score-book, and the
record of a lost match is against you as long as score-
books are published ; but you may repent and never be
careless again. My brethren, I Once lost a match by
carelessness, Owing to treating a catch—which I could
have caught in my mouth !—too much as a matter of
course. The man I missed was the Prince of Wales’s
coachman, who belonged to the Star and Garter Club
in Pall Mall, the sacred site of the original tavern, and
H 2 .
100 The Game of Cricket.
headquarters of cricket in the last century. I dropped
it, my friends, and remarked, ‘I have lost the match,”
and my words were prophetic. H. R. H.’s Jehu scored
four runs ‘not out,’ and I missed him before he scored
any, and we lost by three runs instead of winning by
One. The hardened sinner is the man who commits
blunder after blunder without remorse, and thrusts
himself into match after match for his own self-glory
and the degradation of the game.
And be not downhearted if you do drop a catch or
miss running a man out through misadventure, for bear
in mind that the glory of the game is its uncertainty,
and that the very best men in England have made mis-
takes, and will make mistakes until the end of time.
The simplest catch is often missed because it was “too
easy —in other words, the ball came so slow and so
‘pat into the fieldsman’s hands that he thought he held
it before it reached him ; and (but this is not necessary
carelessness) so it will be till the end of the chapter—
and so ends Homily No. 2.
CHAPTER IV.
T) UTITES OF A YOUNG PLAYER, WHO IS PUT IN TAST.
AND now, my young brethren, let me talk to you when
you are on the in-side. First, leave the captain alone,
and don’t look over his shoulder when he is making out
the order of going in. He knows well enough who are
his best counsellors and will get them round him ; and
if he wants you he will ask you to come.
We have no reason to believe that Ensign Smith or
Cricket Homilies. 101
Sergeant Jones, however brave and willing soldiers they
might have been, looked over the Duke’s shoulder when
he was planning the attack at Waterloo, or that a saucy
‘midshipmite’ or swarthy boatswain helped Nelson with
his last immortal signal, so you leave the captain alone;
and, by the bye, respect Nelson’s words, ‘England expects
every man to do his duty.’ And if your place is last, or
last but one, on the list, never say a word to any One
about it; and even if you think your lot unjust, make
up your mind for a noble revenge by a resolve to do the
very best, even if your luck is not to get a ball. And be
not forgetful that there is a possibility of your having
the responsibility of going last for four or five runs, and
if such should be the case and victory falls to the lot of
your side, and ‘won by one wicket' is the verdict, what
honest glory and joy will be yours | A match is Only
One of many similar events in the season, and you may
safely rely on the fact that some good cricketer amongst
the crowd has marked you down as a safe man to invite
into an eleven.
Referring to your ancestors and your contemporaries,
about the going in last and what can be done, I give
you three examples. If you will take your Lillywhite,
in the 1844th year of the Christian era, vol. iii., page
259, you will read in the Winchester v. Harrow score,
“The last wickets of Winchester, Attfield and Snipley,
ran 99 runs, raising the score from 70 to 169.” Again
in the 1869th year, in Gentlemen v. Players, Wootton
went in last, and the public opinion was that ‘it was all
over except the shouting,” and Wootton, who scored
only 11, as he did all in his power to give Pooley (who
was hitting hard) the ball, ran 69 runs and brought
the match to seventeen runs to win in thirteen minutes.
102 The Game of Cricket.
And with an eye to your ancestors, counting amongst
them men now alive and hearty who have discontinued
public play, let not this fact pass unheeded. The game
now mentioned was stopped for a minute whilst Edgar
Willsher, the captain, took Pooley out a glass of water,
for the purpose, as backbiters thought, of ‘fiddling for
time.” But I, the writer, can tell you how the back-
biters wronged him, for the glass of water was an ex-
cuse for giving Pooley his ‘riding orders,” which were
worthy of a real cricketer like Edgar Willsher, and they
were as follows:—‘Win the match if you can, but don’t
play for a draw.” One more example of the dignity of
the last place in the Order of going in will suffice. You,
many of you, will remember, and probably some of you
witnessed, the grandest spectacle ever seen in the
London cricket world, when the Australians met Eng-
land in September, 1880, and if you did, you will never
forget how Mr. W. H. Moule went in last when—con-
ventionally speaking again—to all appearances ‘it was
all over but the shouting,” and a single-innings defeat
was imminent, and how the score grew and grew until
the single-innings defeat was saved, and fifty-six runs
scored to the good; and besides this Mr. Murdoch, the
Australian captain, had the honour to head the English
champion’s score by one run with “not out to his name.
And quoting one more instance [but that is unfortunately
of a hero who is gone], poor G. F. Grace, and Patterson,
the two last men, some years since, in Gentlemen v.
Players at Lord’s, who, being at the wickets, pulled off
the match although there were in round numbers about
fifty wanting to win. And in recording this grand match
don’t let us forget to say an honest word of praise in
favour of our national glory and love of fair play. Don’t
Cricket Homilies. 103
let us boast, but let us be thankful that the largest crowd
of Englishmen ever collected to witness our national
game were heart and soul in admiration of Our colonial
cousins, who fought one of the finest up-hill games ever
seen, and proved themselves worthy representatives of
the Anglo-Saxon blood.
CHAPTER W.
HINTS TO T3ATSMEN AND OTHERS.
IN the last chapter I endeavoured to point out the duties
of a young player who is put in last, and some of the
responsibilities and possible glories of that position ;
and now let me talk to you about your line of conduct,
assuming that you have a more prominent position
amongst the batsmen. If, as you generally can, you
find a kindred spirit who is as earnest in the game as
you ought to be, get him to walk round the ground
with you, and always carry out the good old practice
(which, although a lea, non scripta, might well be made a
law of the M.C.C.) never to go on the ground without
a coat over your jacket. Dike many other good old
customs, it is now more observed in the breach than in
the performance, and a great pity it is so. The old
Cornish wreckers had the credit of ‘hobbling ' a white
horse with a lantern round his neck on dark nights On
the shore, which to the navigators of a storm-driven ship
looked like the light at the bows of a boat riding at
anchor and attracted them towards the breakers. Just
so when a man is at the wicket and judging a run, he
suddenly finds that he has mistaken long-leg for one
104 The Game of Cricket.
of his own side and is run out, or on the other hand
has mistaken one of his own side for long-leg and has
lost a run. The old law ought to be re-enacted. And
reverting to this walking round the ground, if you are
an amateur, and a young professional colt is on your
side, don’t forget to take him with you, and watch every
ball bowled, and especially watch the field, for in every
eleven there are two or three dangerous men owing to
their wonderful quickness in throwing. And let me
say in love and not in anger, that many of you wrong
yourselves of your natural abilities by not practising
the noble art of throwing and catching; and it is not
too much to say to a large portion of you, that as you
gain confidence and improve in batting too many retro-
grade in fielding and throwing. Mark in these short
homilies how carefully I abstain from attempting to tell
you how to play—for it would be conceit on my part ;
I am simply laying out a line of conduct for you to
follow, and in so doing I am only putting before you the
conduct of those who were and are shining lights in the
cricket world, and whose examples are worthy of your
imitation.
Mr. Felix, the writer who perhaps packed the greatest
amount of common sense, science, and wit into one small
book on such a subject that was ever known, tells you
all about success in batting. His diagrams and draw-
ings carefully noted with the letterpress will show you
the best paths towards the goal which you seek, and
the pith of his golden maxims is summed up in a very
few sentences, the purport of which is, When practising,
play every ball as carefully and thoughtfully as if you
were taking part in the greatest match, and encourage
the bowler with a trifle on the wicket to induce him to
Cricket Homilies. 105
do his best. And when you go in, no matter whether
the bowler be first or second rate, remember that the
next ball may take your wicket, and always be prepared
for defence; and his theory was that when prepared
for defence a man is doubly prepared for punishment.
And he has another valuable theory, which is, Never be
expecting a ball for any favourite hit. There “Felia,
dia.it.” As to the rules of running, they have been
written over and over again, and if you do not take the
trouble to read them, and study them, and act on them,
my only advice to you is to abandon the game.
And, brethren, one word now about nervousness, so
called. In nine cases out of ten it means a guilty know-
ledge of your own shortcomings occasioned by want of
practice against a good bowler. A good professional
with the magic sixpence on the wicket will give you
more trouble than many bowlers in a match, and your
“funk’ is just the same as that of a careless barrister
who has not read his papers, or a schoolboy who does
not know his Virgil lesson.
A real cricketer—and no one deserves the name who
has not a big heart—Ought to feel as if no Iman in
England can bowl him when he comes in to a beautifully
smooth wicket with the creases marked, a new red ball,
and the field all quiet and in order. Why, you see a
ball three times as well as in practice, because your
nerves are braced and your whole mind is on the game.
If you are constitutionally nervous before a crowd, con-
fine yourself to little village matches, and don’t seek
public fame.
106 - The Game of Cricket.
CHAPTER WI.
BACKING UP, OVER-THROWS, GOOD BOWLING.
THE worst exhibition of cricket you can show is throwing
at the wicket with no one backing up. Nothing is more
sad than seeing a ball travelling into space away from
every one, whilst four or even five runs, as I have seen,
are made; but, if the non-striker is backing up too far,
a little combination between point or short-slip, for
instance, and the bowler or mid-on (who must drop
back to back up) for a quick return, or even a medium-
paced shot to the bowler’s wicket, has been done with
advantage, but it must be an agreed-on movement, and
not a chance shot. Mr. Felix and Adams, both of the
old Kent eleven, by combination ran many a man out,
as Tom Adams was notoriously one of the best shots
with a cricket ball ever known, and Felix was sure to
save an over-throw.
Fvery fieldsman ought to say to himself, ‘Let us
have no over-throws,’ and, no matter where he is stand-
ing, his whole thoughts ought to be on the watch until
the ball is dead. Nothing sounds worse than to hear
a fieldsman’s attention drawn to what he ought to have
anticipated. Above all things remember that wicket-
keeper is mortal, and has hands which suffer quite
enough in the Ordinary course of the game, and Ought
Inot to be taxed with stopping a ball hard thrown in
when the men are not running and have no intention of
doing so. When you are in the long-field, and wicket-
keeper calls on you, throw with all your might, for he
means it ; and referring you to an instance of this
Cricket Homilies. 107
almost in your time, in the match between North and
South at Lord’s for Hearne’s benefit, Wootton’s run-out
was remembered by those who saw it as one of the best
pieces of cricket in that match. Wootton, who had
made a splendid leg hit to the press tent adjoining the
ladies’ grand stand, attempted the second run for the
throw, not knowing that Mr. C. E. Green could reach
the ball with one hand, which he did at full stretch,
and Mr. Green with a long low throw, and a fifteen
yards’ bound straight to the bails, from at least eighty
yards distance from the wicket, with Pooley’s ready aid
accomplished the ‘run-out.” -
Just to illustrate the difficulty of throwing down a
wicket. At some athletic sports a throwing pool was
established, and the game was to throw down a fairly
pitched wicket at fifty yards, standing opposite to it,
the wicket to be struck full or first bound. The stake
was a shilling for three throws, and a crown for every
time you succeeded. Try it yourselves, my young
brethren, for say threepence for each hit, three shies a
penny; it is capital practice, and you will soon learn
that throwing to a wicket, like batting, requires no
little practice, and the holder of the bank will win.
And let me beg of you to go back to the ways of
your ancestors, and when having a regular lesson in
batting from a professional bowler, anywhere, except
in London, where ground-men will not mark creases
because it is too much trouble, have your wicket pre-
pared with creases marked, and all play the game as if
it was a match, and you will find that playing in a
match comes as easy to you as practice.
Observe one golden rule in the field, which is to “go
over quickly, for remember that going over, if you
108 The Game of Cricket.
time it with a watch, in ordinary public three-days
matches, occupies about forty seconds; and if you
count the overs in a match and multiply them by forty,
and reduce the total to minutes, you will be surprised
to find how much time is cut to waste. And in going
Over always look at the captain, who may want to give
you a hint, which he may do by a motion of his hand,
as a good captain is generally silent unless there is
Occasion for his voice to be heard, and then he may
shout com amore, especially when he sees two men run-
ning for the same catch, and he wants one to stop and
the other to try it, or if he sees the bails are off during
a run, and wants a stump pulled Out.
And now one word about good bowling. Avoid
throwing. In the first place, it is a melancholy con-
fession that you cannot bowl; and because umpires
have no sense or moral courage to stop you as they
ought, it is not a manly thing to take advantage of their
weakness, and to follow a practice which a majority
of the world disapproves. I have not used many hard
words, but throwing is the subterfuge of a coward.
And reverting to your ancestors Once more, take it
from me that when the good rule existed that bowlers
should keep the hand below the shoulder, the Gentle-
men beat the Players by their bowling, and that per-
fection was acquired by constant practice ; and if you
have the gift—for it is a gift—you can do what they
did by adopting the same means, viz., by constant
practice—and nothing else will do it. And now I must
have a word with wicket-keeper; and to him I would
say there is no fun in constantly taking off the bails
when the man is in his ground. And listen to the
advice given by Wenman—one of the best wicket-
Cricket Homilies. 109
keepers of the past—and his theory was this: ‘If I
stop every ball almost, the batsman will never try a
sharp run for a bye, and long-stop will never have the
chance of throwing down the wicket ; and this throw-
ing at the wicket used to be part of the long-stop’s art,
as illustrated by the ever-memorable Charles Ridding,
the semper long-stop in Gentlemen and Players, who
was ‘ death on the middle stump if he had the chance;
and if he missed it bowler backed him up. Poor Com-
merel (who died young), the “Artful Dodger’ of Harrow,
and the king of run-stealers, fell to C. R.'s deadly throw,
in that Winchester v. Harrow match of history. And
listen to another maxim of Wenman, which was, ‘Never
ask for “stumping” or a catch unless you think yourself
the man was out, for if you are always asking, the umpire
will give the batsman “not out ’’ when he is. And in
asking let the wicket-keeper be always just and gene-
rous, never “snap at a judgment,” and above all never
let him shout to an umpire.” This is a second-rate
player’s trick which sometimes creeps in amongst
amateurs, and it is often a scandal amongst too many
professionals who ‘snap at everything.
CHAPTER WIT.
“THE CAPTAIN.”
TIET me now address myself to you, my young brethren,
on a subject which is by far the most important of all,
and that is the proper exercise of absolute power and
authority.
It will probably be the lot of many of you to become
110 The Game of Cricket.
Captain of your side, or, in other words, to hold sovereign
sway during the match. In such an event you must
expect many difficulties, but firmness and good temper
will overcome them, and by the exercise of these two
qualities you will acquire the confidence of your little
army. -
The first requirements for a good captain are
perfect impartiality and unselfishness. In the first
place, be sure and arrange with the rival captain the
time for drawing the stumps (and see that the umpires
compare watches, unless there is a village clock),
boundary hits, and all the minutiae, which if settled
beforehand avoid any questions during the game.
Nothing is worse for good-fellowship and good cricket
than a dispute between two captains, for not only do
the two leaders differ, but half the busybodies in the
tent crowd in and listen and fight a kind of ‘Welsh
main amongst themselves and engender bad feeling.
If you have an old player in your eleven whom you
can trust, take him thoroughly into your confidence,
and believe me that a young captain who has good
professionals under him, and does not consult one of
them at least, throws his best card away. And assum-
ing that you have no professional in your eleven, take
into your counsel the best amateur, and Organise your
plans with him, when in the field, and also about the
order of going in. Do not be modest about going in
first, if your self-appointed adviser thinks it is in the
interest of the side, and, On the other hand, never take
advantage of your position—as I fear very many do—
by putting yourself in a place which you do not deserve;
and do not omit to keep a good man for No. 8 or even
No. 9, particularly if he is a punisher; believe me,
Cricket Homilies. 111
going in last first innings and first second innings is no
bad thing for an old captain who can stop a straight
ball. Going in last gives him time to observe the play
of all his side carefully, and it leaves him sometimes
with the responsible position of going in for the few
runs to win; and if he is a comparatively old soldier,
and cool and collected, it will be his best chance of
winning.
Crede eaſperto. Since I corrected this sheet I have
played a match, in which I was captain, against a very
strong bowling eleven, or rather twelve (as we played
twelve a side), and being holiday time I had three
young gentlemen on my side, two of them only fifteen,
but on my side I had also seven first-rate professional
players. I knew if I put the youngsters in all together
they would get flurried and not run all the byes and
short runs, so we put them in-by the advice of Richard
Humphrey, with whom I consulted from start to finish–
Nos. 3, 5, and 7, between good professionals, with orders
to run as they were told. This, of course, gave them
confidence, and we got mine runs out of the three
youngsters, and they ran at least six byes and short
runs, i.e., fifteen runs in all, and we won an exciting
match on the first innings by seven runs ! This shows
what captaincy does; and not only did R. Humphrey
advise well, but, as he made a long score, the youngsters
were all in with him.
When a stranger comes from a distance to play for
you, you cannot be too particular in showing him all
possible courtesy, and giving him his choice of going in,
and, in all reason his choice of his place in the field,
and, in a one-day match, giving him a second innings if
possible. And about this second innings, when you
112 The Game of Cricket.
have the game in hand, give those who have been un-
fortunate in their first innings a chance; in other words,
Send in the ‘ candidates for spectacle,” and almost with-
out exception put in the ‘not out first.
And, On the other hand, except in cases where a
player has accepted a place in the eleven conditionally
On leaving early, have the moral courage flatly to refuse
the man who wishes to go in early ‘because he has to
catch a train,” and tell him you can get runs enough
with ten men—and be assured, my young brethren, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he will not go, and
will not attempt to catch the phantom train, which
possibly never existed, but was a creation of fancy to
secure an early place.
And let me speak a word in love and not in anger
to those who have sharp and irritable tempers—for such
there are amongst some really good captains. Do your
best to curb your worst enemy, and, provided your whole
heart is in the match, your own side will be the first to
forgive a sudden expression of brutum fulmen.
Still, try and curb your angry passions, and so keep
your own weakness before you and try to cure it.
In my first homily I urged upon your little army
the duty of punctuality and obedience, and I need
hardly call upon the captains to set the example. No-
thing is more acceptable to the spectators than to see
the eleven walk out punctually as the clock strikes the
appointed hour at the commencement of the match or
after the dinner hour. The gate-money, which is now
a necessary evil, entitles them to expect punctuality.
As a rule this is well observed at Lord’s, but, if truth
must be told, the delay and want of punctuality on
many county grounds is simply lamentable, and I urge
Cricket Homilies. 113
you strongly to avoid it. I even go so far, in the event
of any of the absentees being notorious offenders, as to
recommend your commencing with eight or nine in the
field and refusing substitutes; and if members of your
eleven do not come at all, put their names down as ‘absent,’
and let them settle the question of their conduct with the
club. Every honest cricketer, should any unforeseen
accident occur, always sends a good substitute. As
captain you cannot be too quiet in the field. Pass the
word to the man whose position you wish to change,
and when you have a trustworthy player whose attention
never flags, leave him some discretion in shifting his
position. Short-slip or short-leg, for instance, or point,
if he carefully watches the batsman, can sometimes tell
best how to vary his place, better than bowler or captain.
And above all things, remember the late Mr. W. Ward’s
maxim as regards bowling, which was, ‘Change your
bowling constantly when the batsmen are well set; any
change is better than none.’ And he advises, further,
that no bowler, however good, ought to complain at
being taken off when twenty runs are scored.
And now, my young brethren, observe that I have
avoided very carefully saying anything about how to
play cricket. You have so much tuition at schools in
the present day, at universities and in good clubs, and
there are so many good text-books written, by Felix,
and Pycroft, and old Lillywhite, and writings in
cricketers’ guides by men like Mr. Gilbert Grace and
the Hon. Mr. Lyttelton, and others who are among the
greatest of modern players, that you ought to be able
theoretically and practically to learn the game, though
practice is better than book learning.
And let me go back to things to avoid. First and
I
114 The Game of Cricket.
foremost, avoid all clubs who bar contending against
elevens who play professionals. On the contrary, play
with clubs who seek the strongest opponents, for when
you have once scored double figures against first-rate
county bowling, you feela man; and take it from me that
no practice is better when fielding than a long leather
hunt. You may go twenty miles to a match and never
have an innings. What matters it? If you feel that
you have done your best the day has not been wasted,
for the lesson will do you good. It is far better than
knocking down all a weak eleven's wickets and getting
a gigantic score against slipshod bowling.
And one word about self-examination. Assuming
that you have got a good score, compare your runs with
your fielding, and ask yourself if you have fairly earned
all the runs which have been placed to your credit, or
whether there is not a debtor’s account against you for
dropped catches and balls missed in the field. Let us
look back with melancholy pleasure to the wonderful
feats performed by the late Mr. G. F. Grace in the
Australian match in the long-field. He did as much
for the match as any one on his side, and though his
batting was for a wonder unproductive, he did his fair
share towards the victory which was won in 1880.
Always bear in mind that a really good cricketer as
a rule saves more runs than he makes, and many a run-
getter loses more than he scores, especially in second-
rate matches.
And finally, addressing all my young brethren who
belong to the noble army of cricketers, which is very
different from the legion who play, or rather pretend to
play, a shambling game which they call cricket—the
former are constant disciples in a School of science, perfec-
Cricket Homilies. 115
tion in which is unattainable ; the latter are a common
nuisance if they venture to play in public.
Cricket, although a sport in which pluck and skill
must win in the long run, is, as I said before, remark-
able for its uncertainty.
The best men in England sometimes walk to the
wicket and receive one ball only and meet their fate at
Once—and hard as the trial is, the good men bear it
patiently.
Accept the game as a health-giving, glorious amuse-
ment, which brings Out all good qualities, and is a trial
of temper and patience and courage; and if, in promoting
your own amusement, you are anxious to promote the
amusement of others, especially of those who are very
young, or in a humbler station of life than yourselves,
you will feel a heartfelt pleasure in creating happiness
amongst your neighbours, and will reap a rich harvest
by practising that Christian virtue “UNSELFISHNESS.’
And this is the end of the homilies.
116 The Game of Cricket.
VIII. TWENTY GOLDEN RULES FOR YOUNG
CRICKETERS.
Compiled from instructions received from time to time from celebrated
Cricketers, and from books of well-known writers, as well as from a
personal experience of fifty years in the cricket-field.
THE value of these rules, which appeared in a book of
my own, now out of print, ‘Echoes from Old Cricket-
fields,’ is that they were revised by Mr. Felix, of the Old
Rent Eleven.
In 1869 I was very anxious to get a village eleven
into good cricket trim, and I put down every precept I
could remember and sent the MS. to Mr. Felix, point-
ing out to him that I had taken some of the hints
from his book ‘Felix on the Bat.” He very kindly
asked me to run over and see him at Brighton (as I
was at Eastbourne at the time); but as I heard that he
was much altered through illness, I could not bear the
idea of seeing the wreck of a man whose shadow I had
worshipped almost ever since I was a boy; so with ad-
mirable patience he wrote me numberless letters, and,
as lawyers say, ‘settled the draft; so those who read
this may take off their hats to Mr. Felix’s ghost.
I. Go in when you are told by your captain cheer-
fully, whether first or last on the list; it is his fault,
and not yours, if you are put in in the wrong place.
Twenty Golden Rules for Young Cricketers. 117
II. Think only of winning the match, and not of
your own innings or average; sink self, and play for
your side.
III. Make up your mind that every ball may take
your wicket, and play very steady for the first over or
two, even if the bowling is not first-rate; if prepared
for defence, you are doubly prepared to hit a loose ball.
IV. Except under special circumstances (vide Rule
XIV.), never run a sharp run, or run one instead of
two, or two instead of three, for the sake only of getting
the next hit.
W. Be equally anxious to run your partner’s runs,
and every bye you safely can (although the byes do not
appear to your name in the score), as you are to run
for your own hits.
VI. When the bowling is very quick, and long-stop
is a long way behind, arrange with your partner, if
possible, to run a bye for every ball, until you drive
your opponent to take a man from the field to back up
behind the bowler.
VII. If the field get wild, take every advantage
you can, by drawing for over-throws; if the field once
begin throwing at the wickets, their discipline is gone.
In carrying out this and Rule WT. great judgment is
required, as you are backing your steadiness against
your enemy's anxiety.
VIII. Remember the batsman has five things to
trust to, viz., his brains, his eyes, his arms, his legs,
and his tongue, and he must use them all.
IX. The striker ought to be stone-blind to every
ball which passes his wicket, or is hit behind his wicket;
he is a blind man, and the non-striker is the blind
man’s dog, and ought to lead him straight. The same
118 . The Game of Cricket.
rule applies to the non-striker in respect to balls driven
past him or out of his sight.
X. The man who has the ball in sight ought to keep
his partner informed of his movements. Ev. grat., the
non-striker (who ought to back up directly the ball is
out of the bowler’s hand) should cry ‘not yet, if the
run for a hit behind the wicket or a bye is not certain ;
and then cry ‘hold’ if there is no run; or ‘one,’ ‘two,”
or ‘three,’ as the case may be, if there is a bye, or a
hit past the field. So for a hit to deep middle off or
middle on Out of non-striker’s sight, the striker ought
to cry “go back,” if there is no run, or ‘one,’ &c., as
the case may be, if there is a run. After the first run
made, the player whose wicket is most in danger has the
call. 4
YT. In the case of a hit within view of both bats-
men, such as a ball hit to a watch who is a little ‘ deep,”
either batsman has the right to say ‘no,' if called, for
both wickets are in equal danger.
XII. After drawing your partner past recall, you
are bound to go, and run yourself out if necessary, be
you who you may.
XIII. No matter what you think of the umpire’s
decision, if he gives you out go away and make the
best of it.
|XIV. If the batsman is well set, and is making a
score, and a few runs are wanted, and there is a weak
tail to the eleven, he is right, when a fresh man comes
in, in trying to “jockey the over,’ and get the ball;
this is not selfishness, as he is throwing away a chance
of a ‘not out,’ and may pull the match out of the fire.
XV. If the bowling is very slow and the batsman
makes up his mind to go in at it, he should not give
Twenty Golden Rules for Young Cricketers. 119
the bowler a hint by any movement what he is after,
but stand like a statue till the ball is out of the
bowler’s hand.
XVI. If the batsman does go in and means hitting,
let him go far enough, and right in towards the pitch
of the ball, so as to catch it at full pitch or half volley,
and hit with all his might and main ; if stumped, he
may just as well be for four yards off his ground as
four inches.
XVII. If a batsman either does not know, or will
not practise the rules of running, his partner is quite
at liberty to use his own judgment, and to turn round
and look after the byes, hits behind wickets, &c., and if
a bad runner insists on running himself out, his partner
may let him commit suicide as soon as he pleases.
XVIII. Never keep your partner in doubt by prowl-
ing about outside your wicket, mooning backwards and
forwards Over the crease like a dancing bear, or a mute
Outside a gin-shop, doubtful whether he is going in or
Out ; a silent “wanderer’ is even more dangerous than
a noisy bad runner.
XIX. Remember, cricket is an amusement and
manly sport intended for good fellowship, and not at
a vehicle for envy, hatred, malice, or uncharitableness.
If you have any complaint against your captain, tell
him to his face quietly what you think; but do not
form conspiracies against him behind his back. The
grumblers and mischief-makers are always the greatest
muffs, and the worst enemies of cricket.
The one golden rule for fielding.
XX. Take the place assigned to you (assuming it is
within your capacity), and give your whole mind to the
120 The Game of Cricket.
game, from the delivery of the first ball to the fall of
the last wicket. If you make a mistake, try and mend
it ; many a good field has dropped an easy catch, and
picked up the ball, and thrown it in and run a man out.
Bemember the backing up. A fieldsman is not a sentry
on duty, but is always a fighting soldier, and if a fiver
is hit to the off, long leg even can go into the battle and
render his aid by backing up. Every hit which is made
is the business of the whole eleven in the field, until
the ball is dead. A man who will not attend unless a
ball comes near him, had much better be in the tent
Smoking his pipe.
121
IX. RIGHTS AND WIRONGS OF CRICKET.
CHAPTER I.
PATRONS OF CRICKET.
THE readers of the following pages need not be afraid
of a tirade in favour of men of the past against men of
the present on the cricket ground. Brave men lived
before the Agamemnons of to-day, and the Agamem-
nons of to-day who have followed cricket as a grand
English game are worthy of their sires, and have
honoured themselves by honouring the game.
I purpose, as I go on, to point out to the present
generation the classes to whom they are much indebted
for keeping the game alive, and the first class consisted
of the noblemen and gentlemen of England, who, from
the days of the Old Hambledon, in 1750, until the
foundation of the Marylebone Club, in 1787, gave the
game a home in their parks, and supported it in their
villages. This private influence is still of immense
importance : before the existence of the M.C.C. it was
the very life-blood of cricket. From 1787 onward the
Marylebone Club became a great tower of strength in
London and the suburbs, and, in fact, all over England,
as its laws were accepted by all England as arbitrary ;
but still cricket could not run alone, and within my
122 The Game of Cricket.
own memory great county matches were dependent on
private guarantees, and though very often the guaran-
tors were not called upon if the weather was fine, and
the innkeepers had done well, still, the expense of a
grand match was too great for speculation. Old members
of the Marylebone Club who number more years than
I do have often told me that subscription lists for play-
ing certain matches were handed round in the days
when the M.C.C. only numbered a very few hundreds,
and the making of the matches depended on the funds.
But there was a much larger class to whom we–the
Joneses, Browns, and Robinsons of the present—owe a
deep debt of gratitude, and I will introduce them by
shortly telling an anecdote. -
A few years since a clergyman in the West of
England, older than myself and of bulky form, was
coming on a visit to me, and particularly wished to see
a real country cricket match with some good play. . I
could suit him down to the ground. It was like ‘the
ram caught in the thicket,” as Mitcham and Dorking
were just going to play their annual match on Cotman-
dene, near Dorking. Cotmandene is the rummest
cricket-ground in England—or rather was, alas ! as the
cricketers have deserted it for a new ground. It was
a plateau of about 200 yards long by sixty broad, with
beautiful down turf for the wicket and a rough hill-side
right and left, so much so that cover-point and long-leg
were Out of sight. This difficult ground was the cause
of the Dorking men being such magnificent fields, as
if the ball went off the plateau it might go for six or
Seven. There was an old rustic booth, before which
old shepherds, who did not know their own age, sat,
with real old sheep-dogs as antediluvian as themselves.
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 123
The two elevens were very strong and the match was
very exciting. The parson was in the greatest delight,
as the scenery was glorious and the summer air very
exhilarating, and moreover he had come down there
through a beautiful country in a four-in-hand in the
company of the eleven, which consisted of two or three
public school and university men, the carpenter, the
blackSmith, two or three professionals, a cornet-player
of course, and a man in charge of the carrier-pigeons.
He was expatiating on the pleasures of the day, when
he said suddenly, “There is something wanting, and I
can’t remember what it is. Now I know : “Waiter,
bring a small table, and put before me a glass of brown
brandy and water, a screw of tobacco, and a yard of
clay.” That is what the fogeys did when we were boys.”
And this brings me to my text. We, the Joneses,
Browns, and Robinsons of to-day, are as much indebted
to the old boys of the past who sat behind a yard of
clay in the club-room or cricket-ground as to the noble-
men and gentlemen who liberally supported the game.
Before the days of railways, inhabitants of large
suburban villages and small country towns were wholly
dependent on one another for support and amusement.
Even in the neighbourhood of London suburbs were
clearly defined and separate, and did not form con-
tinuous streets, as now. In those days well-to-do trades-
men stayed at home, and were not ashamed to have
their shop and house under one roof; nor, if there was
an old-fashioned inn, with a good parlour, were they
ashamed to hold their weekly club there. In connection
with this there was sometimes a trap-ball ground, or
bowling-green, and in favoured districts a cricket club.
They knew that it was best to keep their sons and
124 The Game of Cricket.
apprentices at home with something to amuse them,
and wherever there was a cricket-field there was good
cricket. Moreover, cricket was a Church and State
game, and many of the parsons were loyal supporters.
The matches were not very frequent, but Wednesday
and Saturday were regular practice nights, and the
practice was really a cricket match in rehearsal, and
getting into an eleven for a match depended entirely on
excellence at practice. The Conscript Fathers narrowly
watched the rising talent, and every young cricketer
knew and felt that he was playing for a place. The
cricket committees were attended as regularly as a
vestry; it was real business, and the books were
balanced like merchants’ ledgers. Occasionally, if the
eleven were pretty strong, they would play a neigh-
bouring district, with two given men on either side; and
Pilch and A. Mynn and Felix and Adams and Calde-
court and Sewell, and other first-rate players, often
took part as given men. On these occasions they would
have a two days’ match—the gala match of the year,
and put on a sixpenny gate, when the committee sat in
state in their own tent, and nothing pleased them more
than catching sight of a stranger who was pointed out
as a patron of the game, and inviting him in and mak-
ing him welcome, and asking him to have a glass of
wine—for on match days the old boys had dessert and
wine after dinner.
Two-day matches had to be provided for, and funds
raised, as in grander circles. There were all sorts of
curious fines payable in these clubs; a sovereign for any
member who had twins, or had a daughter married, or a
son apprenticed, and so on, and One jolly old bachelor was
fined two sovereigns as a thanksgiving for having beer
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 125
jilted by a widow, who, as he expressed it, ‘wanted him
to drive her without a kicking strap.”
The fostering of the game in out-of-the-way places
was the origin of all the well-known clubs, such as the
Clapton, the Islington Albion, Blackheath Paragon,
the Montpelier, the Camberwell, the South London,the
Mitcham, and many others near London, in which there
were many players fit for any eleven, as the only way into
the eleven was by hard and regular practice, and if a
youngster had not cricket in him the fact was found out.
Sons of rich men who were at any public school or
University were welcomed in all these clubs, but they
had to go through the mill like the rest, and were
pleased at being asked to play in a match, and iſ the
butcher, or the baker, or the tailor was the best man for
the place, he would be captain. So it was in grand
matches. Wenman captained the Kent eleven, and
though Mr. Charles Taylor nominally captained Sussex,
he never moved without Box. One of the wicket-
keeper’s duties was to suggest change of bowling.
Captaincy was a great trust, and a captain was never
supposed to have his mind and attention off the game
for a moment. And we, the Joneses, Browns, and
Robinsons, have to thank music as another great factor
of the cricket handed down to us. On committee nights,
after a big practice, a song would be proposed, and what
Thackeray described as ‘the old brandy-and-water
school of harmony’ prevailed, and “Tom Bowling,” “The
Old English Gentleman,’ ‘A southerly wind and a cloudy
sky,’ and such like songs were sung; and at the “Old
Beehive,’ Walworth, Jack Heath, one of the best long-
stops ever seen, and Pobjoy, a well-known umpire, would
whistle ‘Good night, all’s well!” in wonderful style. It
126 The Game of Cricket.
was not-in any sense pothouse cricket, and it was from
such cricket and from good fellowship engendered by
social meetings that the Surrey Club rose.
The facts are these. The last home of South London
cricket was the Beehive Ground, at Walworth, and
when that was built over, the late Mr. William Baker—
a rare good man in the old Montpelier, who died this
last season, and who was formerly a hatter in the City—
was one of those who was mainly instrumental in found-
ing the Surrey Club by taking the Oval, then a market
garden, on his own hands, and by bringing over the old
Montpelier Club, which migrated en masse, eighty
members joining the Surrey Club. Mr. Baker’s prompt
action gave breathing time to the exiled cricketers, and
enabled powerful supporters from the M.C.C., such as
Mr. Wm. Ward, the present Earl of Bessborough, the
Hon. R. Grinston, Mr. Charles Hoare, and many others
who had cricket at heart, to come to the rescue and
found a Surrey Club, which received a splendid lot of
trained cricketers from the old Montpelier and other
well-known suburban clubs. The managers were
thorough cricketers, who knew and were well known in
the county, and the proof of this is that in a few years
they drew from the village greens and trained eleven
Surrey-born men who beat all England.
So we see that cricket was preserved to us by men
of all classes who were ready to find money and time,
and to set an example of hard work in the field for the
love and honour of the game.
There was another great feature in these local clubs
which has long since been effaced from cricket, which
was the single-wicket match. Single-wicket matches
were very common, Sometimes for a small stake such as
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 127
5s, a man or more, frequently for a Supper—a boiled leg
of mutton and trimmings to wit—Sometimes for love.
A challenge to play a single match was like a challenge
to fight. A man challenged had to accept or knock
under, and many a daw in peacock’s feathers was trotted
out and exposed. I never saw but one single-wicket
match for a large stake, and that was the match between
Alfred Mynn and Dearman, of Sheffield, Dearman had
beaten Marsden, who had been twice defeated by Fuller
Pilch, and Dearman challenged Pilch, who had too
many engagements to accept the challenge, and he
named A. Mynn, who had never been beaten at single
wicket, and they played at Town Malling for 100l. a.
side, really staked, Mr. Selby, of Town Malling, backing
IMynn. The match took place at Town Malling on
August 20, 1838, and was a walk-over for Mynn, who
afterwards defeated Dearman easily at Sheffield. I also
saw the match between A. Mynn and Felix at Lord’s,
June 18, 1846. It really was a match for the champion-
ship of England. It was an easy victory for Mynn,
but the great feature in it was the splendid batting of
Felix, who received 247 balls for three runs. He could
not hit A. Mynn in front of the boundary. An attempt
to revive single wicket was made rather more than
twenty years ago by Jackson, the celebrated bookmaker,
who wanted to back three men against four for 1,000l. ;
but “Bell’s Life had a strong article against reviving
money matches for large sums, and it fell through. A
single-wicket match was attempted at the Oval three
years ago, but it was like a one-horse funeral, and ex-
cited no interest. It looked very much as if the players
did not know the game. -
The old single-wicket matches with three or four a
128 The Game of Cricket.
side were excellent practice for running, throwing, and
catching, and might with advantage be cultivated for
training school elevens. A school coach who wants to
practise some of his elevens would do well by having
six or seven of them out, and, with the aid of the
best school bowler (who would share the bowling
with himself), bowling to each of them three dozen
balls without a net, and making the rest field; and
bearing in mind that at single wicket with more than
four in the field everything behind the wicket, including
byes, counts, this would work the youngsters well, as
each would try to get the most runs, and this alone
would give the practice an interest, to say nothing of
the advantage of making then all run and catch and
throw; for saving runs is equal to making them.
Another good old custom has disappeared, which is
for young cricketers to stand round the ground, and to
practise throwing, catching, and fielding.
It is worth recording the old-fashioned practice of
the past, as possibly some of the present might like to
try what it was like. I can tell them beforehand—it
was precious hard work, and a trial of it will do them a
great deal of good.
CHAPTER II.
CRICKET, AS IT WAS.
I AM going to pull the game of cricket to pieces, and to
find out what it was. In doing this, I don’t mean to
travel over old ground about the Star and Garter and
Hambledon Clubs. If the readers don’t know the story
of the game, it is their own fault, as within the last
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 129
twenty years it has been written and re-written dozens
of times.
If the reader will turn to the laws of 1774 (Lilly-
white's Scores, vol. i., p. 16), he will find that the dis-
tance between wickets, the bowling crease and the
popping crease, the width of the bat and the weight of
the ball, are identical with those of to-day, except that
the width of the stumps (two in number, 22 in. high)
was 6in. instead of 8 in., and the popping crease was 2 in.
nearer to the wickets than that of to-day. The Rev.
Mr. Cotton’s celebrated poem, in which he says, “But
measure each step, and be sure pitch a length,’ proves
that lengths bowling was known in 1774. Mr. Duke
informed me that his old firm made a treble seam ball
for George IV., then Prince of Wales, when a boy. So
the chances are that if a modern cricketer could have
had an eleven of a century ago reproduced, and could
go into their bowling and fielding, unless he played
with a straight bat and kept in his ground, he would
suffer the same inconvenience which several players
suffered from Humphreys’ slows in the Surrey and
Sussex match at the Oval in 1886. Doubtless those
slows of Humphreys’ are substantially the same as
Imuch of the bowling a century ago, except that the
hand was not turned over then. Mr. Cotton’s poem
again proves that the straight bat was known and com-
mended. He writes, -
Your skill all depends upon distance and sight ;
Stand firm to your scratch, let your bat be upright.
As regards the field, any one who has seen the Old
picture at Lord’s of the eleven in the field (which the
late Rev. A. R. Ward, of Cambridge, put down as a re-
K
130 The Game of Cricket.
presentation of the game in the early days of George III.),
and has observed how a row of fieldsmen are posted on
either side of the wickets, all with their hands prepared
* to make the cup '—which the late Hon. F. Cavendish
was always preaching about—and then if he refers to
the old score-books, and marks how many were caught
out in the olden time, he will probably come to the
same conclusion as myself, that players of that day
knew the game as well as we do, though the batting
was more cramped. Again let us quote Mr. Cotton’s
poem :-
When the ball is returned, back her well, for I trow
Whole States have been ruined by overthrow,
I have collected during a large portion of my life all
the evidence I could from the best witnesses, whom I
have known well, most of whom are dead, and I will
give their names, which are as follows:–Mr. William
Ward, who played first at Lord’s in 1810, and John
Bowyer, who played his first match there in the same
year, in Surrey against England, and who died in 1880,
aptat. ninety; Mr. George Richmond, R.A., now alive
and well, who began as a boy to frequent Lord’s when
the M.C.C. commenced playing on their present ground,
and who has been an habitué of Lord’s for seventy years;
and the late Mr. William Woolgar, the actor (who acted
with Edmund Kean and Mrs. Carey, his mother), who
died last year, and whose narrative appears in this book.
I also frequently interviewed the late ‘old Norfolk,” who
was a M.C.C. pensioner at Lord's. In fact, I have left
no stone unturned to get the best available record about
old-fashioned cricket. I may add that Lord Charles
Russell very kindly exhausted his budget. I knew
Fuller Pilch very well from the year 1845, when he
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 131
coached us at the Beverley Ground at Canterbury, until
his death, nearly twenty-five years after that date.
Added to this oral evidence, I have read almost every
well-known old book on the game, from “Nyren’s Crick-
eters’ Guide’ onwards, and have tried to put the puzzle
together, and have come to the conclusion that, before
the palmy days of Pilch, Mynn, Lillywhite, Guy, Red-
gate, and the Agamemnons whom I frequently saw in
the flesh, and many of whom I knew ever since 1837,
when I first saw a Kent and Nottingham eleven, cricket
was kept as a game pure and simple, and was supported
by lovers of the game in places often where a ‘gate ’
was an impossibility, and that the laws were admin-
istered strictly without fear or favour. As to the style
of play, I am not going to discuss that in much detail.
All I know is that those who played with or saw the
great men in the earlier part of this century agree as
to the wonderful defence and straight bat, and the bril-
liant running, fielding, and catching powers of many of
them ; and there is no reason to suppose that the great
cricketers did not know and observe the laws of the
game, and enter into the spirit of it, quite as loyally
as the best men of the present ; or that they did not
do as much to preserve it in days when matches were
played on open downs, without the aid of gate-money,
when winning or losing the match was the great object,
and averages were unknown. True it is that old Beld-
ham told Mr. Pycroft about some matches being bought
and sold, but we have no right to believe that that evil
was of common occurrence. We must look at things
as a whole, and we must assume that honesty was the
ruling feature of the game.
The two most valuable criticisms on the past I know
K 2
132 The Game of Cricket.
of were made by two of the greatest men of the present
day—Or any day: Dr. Gilbert Grace and Alfred Shaw.
The former, reckoning up a man whom few cricketers
Inow alive ever saw—Beldham—and Pilch, whom Dr.
W. G. never saw as Pilch the batsman—said of them
both, “They must have played with a very straight bat,
and have had a good hand, nerve, and eye, and a big
heart to have been so superior to their contemporaries.”
And Alfred Shaw, in discussing William Lillywhite's,
Cobbett’s, and Hillyer's bowling—which he never saw
—said to me, “From all I have heard and read, and
from their authenticated records, I see no reason why
they should not have been equally able to pitch a ball
on sixpence as any man of to-day.”
Cricketers of the past must have been a hardy race.
Bowyer, who told me, as I have written elsewhere be-
fore, that during his cricketing career, when he was
much wanted at Lord’s, he always walked from his
house to the old ground in Dorset Square and back,
thereby adding twenty-two miles to his day’s cricket,
added that many cricketers walked very long distances
to and from their work every day, as there were few
public carriages, and exercise kept them in training;
moreover, they wanted to put by Something for the
winter. It is a great question whether men who lived
this life were not fresher than some who play six days
a week, and have to go through long railway journeys.
Tailway travelling does take it out of any one, even
with the aid of good company, an easy first-class car-
riage, a rubber, and a cigar; but when it occurs that a
player who is full of engagements wants to ride cheap
and save money, the tax on the nerves must be very
severe. Certain it is that in the past men played much
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 133
longer hours, and played matches out; and Bowyer told
me that in country matches, and good matches too,
they began at ten o’clock and played till dark, and
played the game out, if possible—as there was no stop-
ping for dinner, and they had supper at night, and
often had a long walk home. I quote the old man so
much, as I lived in the same parish with him for fif-
teen years, and examined and cross-examined him so
often that I am certain that he told the truth. And I
am quite certain also as to his accurate knowledge of
the game, as I often had him up at the Oval till within
five years of his death, which occurred in 1880; and the
value of his remarks about change in the bowling and
change in the field was often verified by the captain
discovering the very blot which the old man hit upon.
As he played for thirteen years with Beldham and the
survivors of the Old Hambledon, and witnessed the
career of, and often played with, Pilch and the great
men of that era until 1836, I consider his evidence very
valuable. He never had a day’s illness till just before
his death, and he was working in the garden on the
Thursday, and died on the following Monday or Tues-
day. His own account of himself when I asked him
what was the matter was very characteristic of his
simple life and character: “The works are worn out,
and I’ve got into bed to die, and won’t get up no more ;
that is what’s the matter.” I forgot to mention old
John Bayley, who came to Lord’s in 1820, and who was
with the M.C.C. for thirty-five years, and who also
lived at Mitcham, and was a pensioner of the M.C.C.,
thanks to Old Dark at Lord’s—whose ghost may score
for that good act. Bayley was a favourite umpire when
his cricket powers were on the wane, and like Bowyer
134 The Game of Cricket.
was a very quiet, respectable man, with an accurate
knowledge of cricket. I heard from him all he had to
tell of, from a period of sixty-six years ago (at this
date) onwards until he left M.C.C.; and his evidence
tallied much with what Bowyer said and Mr. George
Richmond now confirms. All these witnesses were, and
Mr. Richmond and Lord Charles Russell are still, most
enthusiastic about Lord F. Beauclerc's elegant batting,
and the brilliant fielding at mid-off of a Mr. Parry; so
I may presume that we must all believe that Ilord
Frederick was a grand bat, and that Mr. Parry was a
brilliant field. We of my generation say Mr. W.
Pickering, “Bull Pickering' (his Eton nickname), was
never surpassed by any living man. We do not say
that he was never equalled, as the professional Smith,
of Cambridge, long since deceased, and the Rev. W. F.
Royle, of Lancashire, have done a record which has
never been beaten; and probably Dr. W. G. is not
exactly the bCst man to give a catch to, or try a short
run with, after twenty-one years in the cricket-field.
The old witnesses agree that some of the bowling was
very quick, and some terrific—Osbaldeston and Brown,
of Brighton, to wit—in the earlier part of this century.
It is the first time that I have quoted my own ex-
perience in cricket, which dates back fifty-two years,
when I went to a big public school in 1835, and was
introduced to cricket by being a fag at the age of
twelve, in the days when Winchester boys were never
allowed to touch a bat till they had been two years in
the school, their whole time in play-hours being devoted
to compulsory fagging out ; SO at the age of fourteen I
knew pretty much about the spin and break of a ball
in the field. In those days it was worth learning, as,
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 135
if you got a catch and made it, you were free, and
allowed to go away. The inaugurator of this custom
was the late Tord Cardwell when a prefect at Win-
chester. I think I learnt a great deal then which
lasted me for life; and my humble opinion is that if–
excepting for special practice against a professional
bowler, real practice with sixpence on the wicket, for
instance, or for special practice in bowling at a single
stump—all the nets in England were collected on Guy
Fawkes Day and burnt, it would be the finest thing
for cricket that ever happened.
If young cricketers of to-day would condescend to
have match practice in manner spoken of in a former
chapter, and would go into a field, and work hard at
bowling, running, throwing, and catching, we should
not hear so often the idle excuse for a dropped catch,
such as “She broke and came to my left hand,” because
in practice young cricketers would discover the different
breaks of balls off a right-hand and left-hand bowler,
on and off; and a ball, having no volition of its own,
must break in practice in the same way as it does break
in a match.
And now I say the first thing I have to say about a
large section of modern young amateur cricketers, and
to hit my first blow, which they will find hard to parry,
and it is this: Until you Young England are content
to go into a cricket-field, and can find pleasure and
amusement in practising bowling and fielding, throwing
and catching, amongst yourselves, and trying to perfect
yourselves in all points of the game, and, above all,
doing your best to promote it on your village green, if
there is one, you are worth your ‘average,’ whatever
that may be, and nothing more ; and your ‘average
• * * * *
136 The Game of Cricket.
ought to be discounted by all the mischief you have
done to your side by making cricket a batting lounge,
and being next to useless in the field. These remarks
do not apply to most counties’ cricket of the present. I
would suggest to the rising generation that it remains
for them to work as their forefathers did at practice
before they can be placed in the same class of cricketers
as their forefathers were, as lovers of cricket as a
‘game.’ I will tell them what cricket training was
on the village green where I used to live. Once and
oftener twice a week we had a practice wicket and two
professional bowlers from four o’clock till dark. The
nominal price was 7s. 6d., but with odds and ends it
amounted, perhaps, to 128. Any rising amateurs or lads
of the village could try their hand at bowling under the
direction of a professional, with sixpence on the wicket
for the village lads, and at fielding at such places as short-
slip, point, mid-off, &c., and also we gave the young-
sters a turn at batting. We generally got three gentle-
men to come, so it cost about 48. apiece, and we had a real
enjoyable cricket afternoon—for it was strict practice,
and furnished us with recruits when there was a vacancy
in a good match. All the Humphreys and George Jones
and numberless others learnt their cricket in this way
on the green I am speaking of. Why not try this ex-
periment wherever there are professionals on all cricket-
grounds, especially county grounds 9 Love of the game
does not belong exclusively to either broadcloth or
corduroy—the heart of all must be in it.
I purposely have headed my writings with the title
‘The Game of Cricket,” because cricket is a game or
nothing; and if in pursuing the subject it is found that
5 2
there are any blots on the scutcheon, which may be attri-
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 137
butable to men of this generation, we must consider if
the old shield does not require a little polishing up, and
how it is to be done.
CHAPTER III.
CRICKET. As IT WAS (continued).
I HAVE taxed my brains to remember accurately the
game before forward play became common, when I saw
it first in 1837, in the match between Kent and Not-
tingham. I was fourteen at the time, and having just
been emancipated from cricket fagging, after two years’
apprenticeship, knew something about a cricket ball ;
and I specially marked the forward play of Pilch, Joseph
Guy, and Felix as something perfectly novel. E. G.
Wenman, the wicket-keeper, was the great back player.
I was watching them in practice before the match began.
I saw Alfred Mynn for the first time in 1838, when, as
I said before, he played Dearman ; and as he was in
almost all day, as he got 120 runs at single wicket, I
had the fullest opportunity of watching his batting, and
his grand forward play made a deep impression on me.
Dearman was a very good bowler. Pilch came into
Rent in 1835, and T suppose educated his party. In
1840 Kent played England at Town Malling, the English
eleven being chosen by the M.C.C., and the match
creating great excitement, as Kent had won by two runs
in the year previously; and I went to see it, starting at
five o’clock A.M., driving nine miles to breakfast at seven
o'clock at a parson’s, with a six miles’ walk after break-
fast, giving time to reach the ground by ten o’clock to
138 The Game of Cricket.
See the practice before the match began at eleven.
Now, my recollection of all batting of the best players
about in decent country clubs—and I was at every match
within hail in my holidays from the time I was ten years
old—was that much batting was neither back nor for-
ward play, but medium, the batsman standing with his
legs well clear of the wicket, the fork of his leg being over
the popping crease, and his right and left being about
equidistant from the popping crease, One leg outside,
One inside the crease. The position gave every facility
for playing with a perfectly straight bat, and the best
Imen were content with stopping a good length ball
pretty well dead, turning a straight or nearly straight
ball into the slips, or drawing it between the legs
and the wicket; the general bowling being under-arm,
and some of it very quick and straight, and there being
a great number of shooters from the low delivery, the
play was somewhat cramped. There were some few
who were clean wrist-players, I remember, but I don’t
think many. The balls which mostly caught pepper
were an on or off long hop, and a half-wolley to leg.
And now possibly for the hundredth time I write the
same words. Ever since 1828 ‘round hand ’ came in,
'i.e. the back of the bowler's hand might be uppermost,
though below the elbow—certainly since 1833, possibly
before, the hand was allowed as high as the shoulder,
which was ‘round arm ; and now anything, from a
daddy-long-legs high action to a double somersault—
which I suppose would be allowed if the bowler landed
with one foot behind and within the bowling crease,
provided he did not throw—is permissible. Then there
were the mighty hitters who cracked at a half-volley,
straight or not straight; and if the ball shot and ran
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 139
straight, of course it was certain death to such a player;
and if one of that class was fortunate enough to get a
full pitch to the body, which sometimes came, there
was a mighty hit in the long field, and sometimes there
was a mighty man in the long field who held it—for
catches in the long field were often held long outside of
what is often a ‘fourer’ boundary of to-day. I don’t
remember much cutting behind the wicket, but more
off-hitting from balls which were wide of the wicket, as
all cricketers played single wicket more or less, and
their object, of course, was to keep the ball outside the
boundary stump. On commons and Open downs, when
the ball would run for any distance almost, long-on
and long-off, long-slip and under-leg, as he was called—
the man who lay out for the draw—played very deep,
the latter being expected to cover long-stop. Off-bat
(point of to-day) was well in front of the batsman,
middle-on and middle-off were really what they pro-
fessed to be, about equal distance from either wicket,
standing back some fifteen yards from the centre be-
tween the wickets, opposite each other. Cover-point,
stood about twenty-two yards, where a boundary stump
would be at single wicket, and wicket-keeper (the bowler
who was resting after his Over generally) stood some
three or four yards behind, a little on the off side, look-
ing out for a catch ; as, except in grand matches, there
was little attempt at what is known as wicket-keeping
now. Mr. Herbert Jenner, Wenman, and Box were,
I believe, the pioneers of the great school of wicket-
keepers to fast bowling. Then there was a man to the
on—rather deep-square on the On, who in our grand-
fathers’ days was called ‘hip, and one “over the bowler’s
head.’ Query : Was he a cherub 9 We call it behind
140 The Game of Cricket.
the bowler now. The wicket-keeper, so called, ran after
any ball near the wicket on the on side, and point went
to the wicket. The wicket-keeper’s principal duties
were catching and putting down the wicket, and if a
stumping came off, owing to a batsman rushing off his
ground, it was more frequently with the ball itself, sent
quick on to the wicket, than by the ball in hand as now.
Mid-on and mid-off, and point and cover, had to do most
of the in fighting—the two former in particular; but
they were all covered. And this is worth the attention
of modern cricketers, and they should bear in mind
what the Hon. A. Lyttelton and Mr. A. G. Steel both
agree about, which is that when the boundary wholly
depends on wicket-keeper and short-slip, so that the
latter has to defend wicket-keeper against byes—in fact,
when both have ‘byes on the brain’—you lose half the
value of two of the most important men in the field,
who ought to have nothing to think of but the ball
which is coming to them, and they ought to be like a
terrier at a rat-hole.
Nyren talks of the splendid wicket-keeper, J. Sueter,
the sweet tenor singer. I saw Sueter’s grave in
IHambledon Churchyard, with his name on the stone ;
but as his ghost (whom I should have been much pleased
to see) would not come out, I was none the wiser. In
the old picture of 1743 at Lord’s, which is now repro-
duced in coloured tiles in some tavern entrances, the
gentleman who has taken off his wig is standing behind
the low hurdle wicket, stooping down. Then the bowl-
ing was along the ground, and the wicket-keeper had to
“pop” the ball into the hole, which was under the long
two-foot bail—there being only two stumps—as at
rounders if the batsman was off his ground when hitting,
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 141
or did not make his ground when running. In the
second picture at Lord's, before mentioned, of the early
time of George III., the wicket-keeper is standing near
behind the wicket (two stumps and one bail), 22 in. high
by 6 in. wide, but the bowling was slow length bowling.
Taxing my memory to the utmost, I never saw any one
in ordinary matches stand up as a wicket-keeper does
now to quick under-arm bowling; and I do not think
that wicket-keeping as it now is came in generally till
round-arm bowling had superseded under-arm, and above
all until pads and gauntlets came in. Good wicket-
keepers, I suppose, always were, and certainly are, scarce.
In 1841 I saw Kent and England at Lord’s, at Town
Malling, and Canterbury: they played three matches that
year. In that year pads and gloves became common,
and were adopted by all the best men at Lord’s. It was
about that time also that Lillywhite, Cobbett, and
Billyer were at their best (though poor Cobbett died
soon afterwards), and Redgate and Mynn were the
terrific round-arm bowlers. In those three matches I
saw the best sample of the best men in England, gen-
tlemen and players, and my fixed impression is that,
with the introduction of pads and gloves, the fine on-
play, now so common, grew like wildfire—many would
not wear pads or gloves—amongst the Jones, Browns,
and Robinsons’ class. I never put a pair on till I was
twenty-nine years old, barring a three-stalled right-
hand glove, stuffed with wool and horsehair, for the
three fore-fingers of my right hand. I quite accept
Barlow's reproof in his admirable little book on batting
(which I hope to speak much about eventually); and he
smites me on the right cheek by saying that ignoring
protection of hands and legs is bravado, and not courage;
142 The Game of Cricket.
and I turn to him the other cheek also ; though if he
asked me to give him my old bat, I should tell him that
I would see him at the other end of the world first.
Reverting to the cricket of five-and-forty years ago,
and from 1842—a year later—when I came to London,
a tat, nineteen, and was to be found at Lord’s pretty
regularly, I had the opportunity of seeing, week after
week, the real science of the game. The lesson taught
at Lord’s was not wasted on the Suburban clubs, which
adopted and brought to great perfection every new move
with the aid of good given men, as I said in a former
letter. Round-arm bowling became universal, and
terrible rubbish much of it was in third-rate matches—
about one ball in six straight, and possibly by accident
one “ripper,” which Fuller Pilch would have bowed to.
I may mention that at Schools and in country clubs six
balls were commonly bowled in the over. Good wicket-
keeping became common. Mr. Hayter Reid and Mr.
Andrews (who played in spectacles) at Blackheath, Mr.
Anson, Mr. W. Nicholson, of Clapton Club, and Mr.
William Ridding—the three last named of whom from
time to time kept wicket in the greatest matches at
Lord’s—were excellent. Following in the steps of Box
and Wenman, Guy and Charley Brown of Notts, Chat-
terton of Yorkshire, all sprang up, and after William
Clarke's all England tours, which commenced in 1846,
had been firmly established, the game spread right
through England, played in a manner Superior to the
cramped game in the days of under-hand.
Cricket was opened up first pretty well by Notts
playing Sussex their first home-and-home matches at
Brighton and Nottingham in 1885, and with Kent home-
and-home in 1837 at Town Malling and Nottingham, and
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 143
especially by the great game of North and South, played
at Leicester in 1836, which lasted four days. Be it
remembered that long after pads were invented and
round-arm bowling became universal, the umpires, until
the foolish words (I Crave the pardon of the rulers of
the M.C.C. for speaking so plain) ‘from it to the wicket ’
were inserted in the laws of ‘l b w,’ administered the
law of ‘l b w” equitably; and if the ball pitched from
the bowler’s hand in a line to the wicket, and would have
hit it, the batsman, when leg was in the way, was out.
To provide against this Fuller Pilch gave the same ad-
vice to all his pupils: “Go five yards behind the wicket,
get the umpire to stand as near as he can where the
bowler's hand is in delivery, draw an imaginary straight
line from your standpoint to the umpire, taking the
middle stump in, see where the line cuts the popping
crease, go in front and ask if you have guard for the
middle ; you are safe to have it, and to have sighted
the dangerous ground. Next ask the umpire if your
foot is well clear of the wicket; if it is, mark the
spot, put your right foot well inside, but just inside the
popping crease, mark with the bail a small line against
which you must put the toes of your right foot, throw
your left leg forward, and keep your left shoulder well
up, so that you can see it and the bowler's hand also,
and keep the bowler’s hand on that left shoulder; for-
get all about your wicket and the wicket-keeper, who
can’t hurt you unless you do anything wrong. Then
you are facing the ball straight, and can see the line
of her, and know where she will pitch; and if you can
reach her, put the face of your bat well on her, and
drive her all along the ground. If she is a little short-
pitched you are in a position to play her down.”
144 The Game of Cricket.
The change of bowling to ‘Catherine-wheeling' has
brought about the double break.
The only player I remember who had that formerly
was Hillyer. I often watched him in practice. His
was a rather low delivery—a little below the shoulder
if anything—and in ordinary delivery his fore-fingers
and thumb would be the nearest part of his hand
towards the batsman : he sometimes delivered the ball
with the ball of the fleshy part of the thumb most
prominent, and his hand somewhat in the rear, and he
seemed to push the ball, and she broke across.
James Southerton, who helped himself very freely
to all the vacant ground surrounding the strict law of
bowling, had the double break to an immense extent.
We lived in the same parish, and when he had an off
day he was ready to get a wicket and bring another
bowler for the regulation price—seven and sixpence.
FIe gave very full measure in practice, and bowled his
very best ; for he was a very honest man in what he
undertook, and did not scamp his work, and he was
fond of the game and made practice very interesting.
Any one who practised to him could find out when the
break ‘off to on was coming, as he hung fire for a
second in delivery, and took a strong purchase from the
heel of his right foot." It may be that the enormous
scores of to-day are partly occasioned owing to the
same batsmen meeting the same bowlers again and
again throughout the season. But of this hereafter.
The principal innovations, and I may say improve-
ments, in the science of the game are the “on-play' in-
* Any one who succeeded in playing Southerton's bowling carefully
for a quarter of an hour without losing his wicket or giving a chance,
received a very good lesson in cricket,
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 145
stead of the ‘blind’ leg swipe ; the picking up the ball in
the act of running and throwing her in, instead of turn-
ing round and heading the ball and then throwing ; and
the ‘double break’ from the ‘Catherine-wheeling.” Then
per contra, leg-shooters have disappeared, and a leg-
shooter from Harvey Fellows or Sir Frederick Bathurst
was as deadly, rapid, and painless as the guillotine.
CHAIPTER IV.
CRICKET CLUBS,
I AM going to talk now about the best way of making
a cricket club a society for the promotion of the game
in all its branches. I have mentioned more than once
the old fashion of making practice a rehearsal of a real
match ; and until some club has tried the experiment of
having a double wicket pitched, with the bails on, with
a good pitch, as in a county match, for the use of
members, under stringent fixed laws, I will never believe
that such an experiment would be a failure. Net
practice, with a ground prepared in a slovenly way, and
nets put up anyhow, together with a cramped space for
the bowler’s arm, and batsmen slogging about all over
the field, is a parody on cricket. In a match, if you
happen to get a kicking, or rough wicket, it can’t be
helped, and if you are a man you will have a good try,
and run the risk of being cut over ; but it is not so in
practice: you want to study the Science of the game,
and to string yourself up to the sticking-point, so that
when you go in a match you feel some confidence of
meeting the very best bowlers with some good chance
T.
146 The Game of Cricket.
of success. It should not be a “bread and butter ’
wicket, which kills all bowling, but a wicket which
gives the bowler a chance of making the ball “bite.”
This can only be done by good practice. Felix says
that those engaged in important matches should have
two or three dozen balls from a good bowler every day,
if possible, especially in the morning of a match, and
play the bowler as carefully as if he was at the wicket
in the match itself, and he strongly urges the sixpence
on the wicket, to which I cordially say Amen The
ground itself, except with the consent of two-thirds of
the members at a special general meeting, should never
be let to any other clubs, but be kept for members only,
and for fixed matches and club matches and practice.
At the same time, if members of the club make up a
match amongst themselves on a day when the ground
is vacant, i.e. when there is no other match, they ought
to be provided with a good match wicket, umpires, and
a scorer, unless the weather is such that the ground
would be injured. And if they make up a game for the
practice of cricket the wickets should be prepared for
them, and one ground bowler told off to play with
them. These remarks of course apply to large clubs.
There is too much grandmotherly policy in many clubs,
and exercise of petty authority, and a love of saying
* No 1 ° to any suggestion which does not emanate from
committees or sub-committees. In granting these
rights or privileges there should be some guarantee
that those demanding them really want them. This
can only be done by members being true to one another
and the game; and if a member says that he will be one
of a party of ten or a dozen for practice from four to
six, or whatever the hours may be, he must come and
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 147
stay the whole time, and do his work. I believe that
giving members ample opportunity for good practice is
the first duty of the managers of a club ; and with
properly constituted committees this would be done. I
must quote myself again, but it is only done for showing
how easily a thing may be carried out—not for self-
glorification. It so happened that our cricket-ground
was on the way to the railway-station, and every morn-
ing at half-past eight I saw what the ground-man was
at, and on my return in the evening I went and saw
what was done. And wherever there is a club with
practice wickets for members it should be some one’s
duty to inspect them every day to see that everything
is in order. That is the way to get members and real
cricketers into a club. I saw a beautiful letter from a
cavalry soldier to an old comrade, written after the
Balaclava Charge. It ran nearly in these words—‘Don’t
you remember, old fellow, how we used to damn the
adjutant for the constant sword-drill? He was right.
But for that constant sword-drill I must have lost my
life, as when we came to close quarters all the cuts
and guards came to me in an instant. I only had
two “hand-to-hand” encounters, and found myself the
best swordsman, thanks to the adjutant’s constant
drill, and emptied both Saddles.' Ex-Sergeant-Major
Brittain of the Enniskillen Dragoons showed me the
letter. He was a riding-master at Christchurch, and
taught fencing and boxing, and he hit straight from
the shoulder—as I had cause to know, for he was the
size of Heenan and used to box with me, and could have
crushed me. As in battle so in cricket—constant drill
wins.
Now as regards the club itself, the first thing is to
L 2
148 The Game of Cricket.
be quite sure to whom power is to be entrusted; and for
that purpose the only means of admission on the com-
mittee should be at a general meeting of the club, and
the names of any candidate to be proposed and his
proposer and seconder should be stuck up in the club-
room and sent by circular to every member at least a
month before the general meeting; and the name of
each retiring member who is eligible for re-election
should be put to the meeting separately ; and members
of every sub-committee, whether match committee,
ground committee, or finance committee, should be ap-
pointed only at the general meeting or a special general
meeting. General committees delegating powers to
sub-committees means forming a “clique *—and of all
cliques, a ‘cricket clique is the worst. At the same
time, all by-laws should only be sanctioned at a general
or special general meeting. It is very well in a club to
put one or two thorough men of business on the com-
mittee who do not know much about cricket, if their
hearts are in the cause, as such men never meddle with
what they don’t understand, and are very valuable at
many dry business details; but it is absolute ruin when
men meddle in details of which they have had no expe-
rience and know nothing, and somehow get power of
doing harm. It reminds one of Albert Smith’s definition
of “ Mutual Improvement Societies,” which he described
as a lot of humbugs who knew nothing meeting another
lot of humbugs who knew less and exchanging ideas.
This evil occurs in clubs in which candidates are not put
up for committees in a proper way by notice. Tiet a
man have a chance of being ‘pilled,’ and these impostors
will be afraid to try. This is no fancy picture, or ex-
aggeration. I have known lots of clubs ruined by the
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 149
loose system of appointing committees; and when the
chairman has said, ‘Now, gentlemen, there are two
vacancies in the committee, and we had better fill them
up ; * before the words are out of the chairman’s mouth
up jumps Mr. A., “I propose Mr. B.,’ and up jumps Mr.
C, ‘I second him; ” and the deed is done, and so is the
club. I have belonged to a good many clubs in my
time, and I never knew any one of them worth belonging
to which did not have strict and just government, and
the management of real cricketers.
And now I have a word to say specially to county
clubs, and I have in my eye one which has recently come
prominently before the public in London—and which I
believe, if they stick to their present programme, must
come to the front. I mean Essex. They have bought
their freehold, and have twenty-four members in the
club, two from each of twelve different districts in the
county: they are within touch of every cricket-district,
and are open to any colt, gentleman, or player who will
come and show his talent; and their wish is, if possible,
not to naturalise foreigners. They have the great ad-
vantage of immediate attention from thorough cricketers
—men of position in the county—who devote much
time to the club and the ground, and who are also very
good players. They are also fortunate enough to
have established a caterer without a tavern on the
ground, who provides all wants inside and outside the
pavilion, and they live much in tents as cricketers
should. The rise of the Essex County in an unfashion-
able district reminds one of the words of the old Harrow
song, which, if a little self-laudatory, has a grand ring
in it, and is to Harrovians something like the old song
* Dulce Domum is to Wykehamists—
150 The Game of Cricket.
Say that she rose because she would,
Decause her sons were wise and good,
And bound in closest brotherhood—
Harrow-upon-the-Hill.
And that is the mainspring of Essex county cricket—
for “Harrow-upon-the-Hill’ read ‘Essex-upon-the-
Green.” The Leyton Club has a beautiful ground within
twenty minutes of Liverpool Street and Fenchurch
Street, and the return fares run from seven pence third
to a shilling first-class. The great want in most if not
all county clubs is that there are not enough field days
for colts, both gentlemen and professional, at home, and
not enough out-matches in the county. During the
season there should be regular field days, on which as-
pirants might come up and bowl to good batsmen or bat
to good bowlers. No better days for such trials would
be found than on grand match days before the match—
at ten o’clock in the morning, in the dinner hour, and
after the match. See what an advantage it would be.
Don’t tell me that if the committee of any county were
to ask one or two of their opponents to try what a young
batsman was worth, and to bowl to him a little, or to
bat against an aspirant bowler, that they would say no.
I believe in the chivalry of the game, and in the good-
nature of real cricketers. Why, if I were to ask Tom
Emmett to fetch out one or two of his “ head wides to
astonish a youngster, do I believe that he would refuse?
Not he, unless he had wintered badly and grown cross,
and that would surprise me. I mention Tom Emmett
because I like to keep his ‘head wides before his mind,
but what I say of him as regards willingness would
apply to all good professionals. I said before there was
too much grandmotherly interference in many clubs, and
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 151
unfortunately there is not too much fatherly care about
youngsters. There is too much thought about gate-
money and sensation matches, and too little about culti-
vating the garden of cricket, in the county. Every
county club that has a fixed ground ought to try and
arrange club matches against different districts of the
county which are within reach, on the county ground;
and, if they can afford it, to send an eleven down to play
in neighbouring districts on the home ground. It is
a scandal to allow a cricket-ground to lie idle, when
no county matches are going on, for days and days
together. All these things require a great deal of
thought, care, and trouble, and will not be done in a
day; but if it is once known that the county ground is
fairly available for the cricketers of the county who
want to try, a good deal of self-help will grow up in
the county itself. A good one-day or two-day match,
besides the grand matches, would draw the real
cricketers. What I am going to say now was a fluke,
and a lucky One. Twenty-six years ago, during the
Long Vacation, a village I was living in boasted a cricket
club, which had no money but plenty of cricket, and
the village was going to play Horsham, where there
was a very strong eleven. We were not particular
about our village boundary, and the night before the
match one of the cricketers came to me and asked if I
would help towards getting a young fellow of a neigh-
bouring district, who was about nineteen years of age,
and a good cricketer, to come. It was a question of rail-
way fare and dinner, which amounted to a trifle, and
the finance was arranged. We had a very long drive
to the railway-station, and started, three in a cart—the
cricketer who applied to me, the young cricketer, and
152 The Game of Cricket.
myself—at six o'clock in the morning. The young
cricketer was a regular clipper, went in first, scored
eighty-seven runs, bowled, and long-stopped when not
bowling to a greased-lightning bowler without letting
a bye. We had another good match on the following
Thursday against a very strong club, which had on
their side two or three University players who were
reading (P) at a private tutor’s. I wrote to Mr. William
Burrup, who was then secretary of the Surrey Club, to
come down (some twenty-five miles from London) and
see the new colt play, and to bring some good judge
with him ; and he brought down a first-rate patron of
his county eleven. There was no doubt about the real
grit, and two years afterwards the yokel Harry Jupp
was added to the Surrey Eleven.
It is the duty of a club, when they hear news of
some very good youngster, to have him up, or to send
to some one whom they can trust to see him at
home. You don’t want the youngster who has got
eighty, or even a hundred runs, in some common local
match to come up as a star; what is wanted is one
who can save forty or fifty runs in the field, and who
is pretty safe at a catch, and knows how to stop a
straight ball with his bat with fair average certainty,
and who has nerve. How many times did I hear, on
the coming out of Abel for Surrey and Briggs for
Lancashire, ‘too small for county form.’ I won’t ven-
ture to say who the best eleven in England are, or if
one of those grand ‘little men deserve a place; but
if the ‘best eleven in England’ were matched against
Australia, and one player was absent, and a substitute
was wanted, and either of the above-named short
ones turned up as an emergency, the ‘ring would
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 153
settle down very comfortably, and not prophesy evil
in consequence of the change in the eleventh man
on the list, because they would believe in his nerve and
pluck.
One last word about committees. There ought to
be one after the end of the season, say in the second
week in October; a special general meeting for receiv-
ing the accounts and ascertaining the balance, and all
-proposals for alterations of any importance in the pre-
mises of the club, with plans and a budget, and for re-
ceiving suggestions for, and making if necessary, any
alterations in the rules. It was never intended that
committees should have unlimited power without con-
sulting the members. This should be an amicable and
not a quarrelsome movement. Well-bred Englishmen
can meet and discuss matters and have a fair give and
take. I was on the committee of a large county club
for some years, and we never divided the committee
but once, and the minority were afterwards very glad
we did. Our committee consisted almost entirely of
men who lived for the game, and had been in it from
boyhood. Cricket clubs are much larger affairs than they
used to be, and the funds of very many are counted by
thousands, and clubs should follow the example of all
great companies and have two half yearly meetings;
and should follow the example also, if they have a
general meeting and special meeting on the same
day—holding the general meeting first, and the special
general meeting afterwards. Things of importance
are done too hurriedly sometimes. I would not enu-
merate all these details, but the longer T live the
more I am convinced that no game is worth playing
unless every detail connected with it is carried out in
154 The Game of Cricket.
a thorough business manner, with the greatest open-
ness, mutual confidence, and good-breeding above all
things.
I must add a word about Fuller Pilch's theory. It
was for learning to play a round-arm bowler, bowling
round the wicket, and thoroughly mastering the playing
at the line of bowler’s hand, from sighting the ball and
the top of the left shoulder together. “As regards left-
handed bowling,” he said, “there ! I can’t teach you that.
Take the guard to bowler’s hand as in right-hand
bowling, and mind you don’t play outside the ball when
she breaks; try to watch the line of the pitch, and put
the face of the bat on her, but you must learn that by
practice; and all I can say is what the schoolmasters
used to say to you over your Greek letters—and a very
ugly family they are, T only saw them once—“If you
don’t mind your book you will get the stick,” and if
you don’t learn to put the face of the bat on the ball
off a left-hand bowler you will lose your wicket.’
CHAPTER W.
CRICRET-GROUNDS.
IN a well-known horse case many years ago, Baron
Alderson, who was as full of fun as a monkey, though
at the same time an excellent judge, in answer to the
foreman of a jury, who said, ‘I regret, my lord, that
we had not the opportunity of looking into the horse’s
Imouth, and of forming our own judgment,” said, ‘I am
sorry, too, Mr. Foreman, as I should have much liked to
look into its mouth too—not that many of us would
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 155
have been much the wiser, perhaps, but the spectators
would have given us credit for being very knowing
about horseflesh.’
I am going now, as I said in my last, to talk about
cricket-grounds. There are a great many people who
never grew anything but mustard and Cress in a small
back-yard who get on committees of clubs, and suddenly
fancy themselves very knowing about turf, just as the
foreman of the jury was anxious to show his knowledge
about a horse’s mouth, though, probably, he had never
looked into one in his life.
For a club with plenty of money the way is very
simple ; they have only to go and inspect two or three
cricket-grounds and see which is the best within a
reasonable area—or, as Mr. Gladstone would say, within
measurable distance—and to make the fullest inquiries
about the ground-man, and give him the contract to
keep the ground in repair and to find his own staff.
T}oes any one think that members of the committee of
the M. C. C. ever interfere with Mr. Percy Pearce,
ground-keeper at Lord’s 2 The deep clay soil which be-
comes a ‘snipe ground in very wet weather is a natural
formation which no artificial means can remedy; clay
is clay, and there is an end of it; but see what Mr.
Pearce has done with that heavy clay, and what a
splendid greensward it is. Turf is as great a specialty
as chemistry, and nothing goes wrong quicker, or be-
comes renovated quicker by care and attention, than
turf; but it must have the attention of a master hand.
The head man in charge who actually superintends the
work on the ground ought to live in his shirt-sleeves
and never know when it is time to leave off; then it
Ought to be made worth his while.
156 The Game of Cricket.
Some of the old-fashioned wickets where the turf is
naturally good—a good village green, for instance, where
the turf grows fine—are far preferable to many of the
“bread and butter’ wickets of to-day. The old fashion
was simply as follows:–In March, when the dry winds
were on, and the surface of the ground was first dry
though moist underneath, the grass had a tremendous
bush-harrowing with old-fashioned bushes, and a good
weight on them; then a thorough rolling with a heavy
two-horsed roller, once and for all. After this any
holes or sinking of the surface could be discovered; the
soil underneath was raised with a long five-pronged
fork, and if it showed a tendency to sink again, the
turf where holes appeared would be taken up, and some
soil put underneath. After this, on all dry days when
the roller did not clog with soil, the surface was rolled
with a hand-roller. The consequence was that the Sun
and rain could get into the ground, and there was a
good crop of grass, which was occasionally mowed—or
rather swept—with a scythe, and the top of the grass
left on the surface, unless it was mowed for a match.
When prepared for a match a light lawn-mower was
used. Then, if it happened to be a showery day, the
wicket might play dead or the ball might shoot ; but
we never had such a state of things as occurs to-day,
namely, a wicket and surrounding ground mowed down
to the roots of the grass, saturated with water, and
afterwards rolled with a tremendously heavy roller, so
that if the day is very fine, and the sun very hot, the
pitch is like asphalt, and the surface blows away in dust
when it gets worn ; and if heavy rain falls suddenly,
followed by a scorching sun, the pitch becomes ‘York-
shire pudding.” I am tired of reading in cricket reports
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 157
‘the ball kicked frightfully,” “the ground became almost
unplayable.” Of course, if people play tricks with
the ground everlastingly, wholly against nature and
the theories of real gardeners, you must expect your
choice of asphalt, mud, putty, or dust. The only trick
which some of the new theorists, whom no one would
trust to buy a turf for a lark, have not tried is ironing
the wicket with a tailor’s “goose,” and surely there are
plenty of “tailors’ and “geese’ about cricket-grounds.
Who could ever show a ‘nobby head of hair if five
different barbers cut it according to their own fancy?
It is the most ruinous thing to allow any water to
be put on until the sun has gone down. A hydrant is
the most dangerous implement in the hands of any but
those who understand turf. I have seen men on cricket-
grounds shooting the water on like swabbing the decks
of a ship. It is wilful murder. Even with a hydrant
there should be a hose, and the water should fall like a
shower after the sun goes down and the ground is still
Wał"IY). .
The old-fashioned way of making a pitch in any
meadow with a good bottom—and it answers well now
—was to ease the ground with a long five-pronged
fork, water with a watering-pot with a rose on—and
the rose is all the better for having a turned-up nose,
which allows the water to fall lightly and percolate
until the ground has ceased to be thirsty; and next
day when the dew is all off don’t be afraid of rolling
the turf too much with a hand-roller which you can
push yourself. It is elbow-grease and a wet shirt that
make cricket-grounds in places where grass grows well,
and nature will do the rest. It is astonishing in how
short a time you can get a fair practice pitch with a
158 The Game of Cricket.
little care. In a little village under Box Hill, where I
spent my long vacation in early autumn, I succeeded
as tenant to a family of which Mr. Lang—of Harrow
and University notoriety as a greased-lightning bowler
—was a member. There was no money in the village
club, and the green was very rough, so much so that
Mr. Lang had crippled all the cricketers who faced him.
This was in 1862, and it was my second sojourn there.
The doctor recommended me plenty of fresh air and
exercise, so I took into my councils “Old Billy,” a quaint
character, and a kind of Trotty Weck. At seven o’clock
every morning Billy and I commenced, and, as he said,
“mucked about till twelve o’clock. First we made a
noble practice wicket, and out came the cricketers.
Then Billy and I set to work to make a match ground,
and we played at least a dozen home-and-home matches.
We made every one who used the wicket carry pails of
water afterwards. They were just keen in matches; we
had no defaulters bar one—Joe Bishop, the Sawyer—
who did not arrive till one o’clock, but he had the ex-
cuse that he had a goose for dinner at twelve o’clock,
and he smelt the goose, and was only mortal, and sat
down. But judgment followed, and he nearly became
immortal, as he stood point, and I got hold of an off
long hop, and hit him bang on the mark with a hard
hit from a driving bat, and when Joe got his wind he
said, ‘It hit me on the goose and served me right,’ and
he spoke disrespectfully of the goose.
In the old laws of cricket of 1774 there is a law—
“The party which goes from home shall have the
choice of the innings and the pitching of the wickets,
which shall be pitched within thirty yards of a centre
fixed by the adversaries.’
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 159
I am by no means sure that this is the worst rule I
ever read; and I am by no means sure that the visitors
should not have choice between turf and “asphalt.’ I re-
member, when Mynn and Dearman played their single-
wicket match, that the umpires, B. Good and Caldecourt,
were sent by the M.C.C., and that Caldecourt was sent
down to Yorkshire the day before the return match to
See a fair wicket pitched, and doubtless the same was
done at Town Malling. One thing is quite certain,
which is, that the captain who is going to take the
innings is very foolish if he does not inspect the wicket,
and if he is not a judge himself he should take some one
who is, to decide whether he will have a light or heavy
roller or no roller at all. In England v. Australia
(return) last season, Briggs scored something like fifty
runs in the hour, and after the heavy roller preceding
the Australians’ innings was used, the ground was putty,
and the Australians went down like rotten sheep. It
occurred to me and many others at the time that if the
roller had not been used the Australians would not have
come to such a smash.
So much for grounds as regards surface; now about
cricket-grounds as regards the spectators and the public.
Lord’s is the pattern ground for management. Of
course the M.C.C. are rich and above the world, as they
have an immense revenue—generally stated at about
15,000l. per annum. And they deserve all they have, as
they provide first-rate accommodation for the sixpenny
visitors, and share their prosperity with those who love
the game, both at home and by sending out M.C.C.
elevens all over England, and have extended their
season for the purpose of playing county matches with
what some people call ‘minor' counties. And their
160 The Game of Cricket.
“minor’ counties afford some good sport, and develop
much good play and send out rare good men.
Following such an example as the above, all county
clubs which have an income in excess of their needs
ought to do likewise, and should, as I always maintain,
make the county ground the playground for members
and country elevens, and should, above all, as their
means will allow, provide covered accommodation free to
those who pay at the gates. It is all fair enough to have
a certain amount of private-stand accommodation for
those who choose to pay for it, as it brings certain classes
who would not come otherwise—especially ladies—but,
although I protest against the theories of the enlight-
ened patriot who says, “I am a working man, I am,
and if the gentlemen take my sixpence they have no
right to go in for a shower; I don’t leave my work for
a shower,’ &c., &c.; still, I stick up strongly for great
consideration being shown towards those who come in
thousands, and whose money now takes the place of
private subscriptions which were necessary in days gone
by ; and good space which is fairly claimable by the
sixpenny crowd ought not to be curtailed by the erection
of stands unless a fair proportion of them are free.
And now I have a word to say about clubs and the
victualling department. In Nyren’s description of the
victualling department at the Old Hambledon, it makes
one hungry and thirsty to read the account of the
brawny-faced fellows of farmers, two of whom would
strike dismay into a round of beef, and would drink
punch that would stand on end—punch that would make
a cat speak—and ale that would flare like turpentine,
the immortal Viand that was sold at twopence a pint.
Genuine Boniface | Many of us who have played much
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 161
about in county matches must remember many grounds
on which the landlord and his family contributed greatly
to the success of the club.
I must confess a weakness towards the old-fashioned
booths, the bustling landlord and his family, the cheerful
welcome, and the rough-and-ready luncheon, provided
—as generally is the case—things are clean. I like a
Sandwich as big as the palm of my hand of real meat
and real bread, that makes a luncheon for a hungry
man, and am ready to pay sixpence for it; and I like a
cup of tea made by the jolly landlady, out of a big pot,
and a couple of slices of tolerably thick bread and
butter; and if I want to sit down and have a turn at a
table in a booth, I like a cut off a great piece of roast
or boiled beef, which, with a potato, a pickle, and a bit
of jolly old cheese and a crust of bread, are a feast for
a king—and I am not particular about a black-handled
steel fork ; but I am not fond of the higher order of all
cricket-ground luncheons. Hungry-eyed waiters, hired
for the day, who pursue you with mayonaise of salmon,
drumsticks of fowl, dry ham, and warm salad, give me
—excuse the provincialism (I am a Wiltshire moon-
raker)—‘the dry-bellyache.” On cricket-grounds nine-
teen people out of every twenty want a mouthful of
something at no great price, and always ready to one
who wants a meal at half-a-crown or three shillings.
And here I think I may say a word to large clubs. The
worst policy is to let the tavern—if there is one—to
any one who will pay the highest rent. A club is for
cricket, and not for the purpose of making a profit out
of a public-house. A cricket tavern is an admirable
home for a deserving old cricketer, who will take an
interest in the club and the company, and will provide
M
162 The Game of Cricket.
the best of everything that the committee require of
him at a fair profit, and who will attend to the ‘vic-
tualling' department as earnestly as to the drinking
department. The triangular sandwich, the bottled
lemonade, the “railway station tea and coffee, are a
mockery. How is it that you can go into almost any
foreign café in Tondon and get a breakfast-cupful of
coffee or chocolate, equal to that in Paris, and a roll
and butter, for sixpence ; and why is it that a cup of tea,
of by no means a high order, is your only solace on
Imost large cricket-grounds except in the country 9
How is it that you can go to Sainsbury’s in the Strand
and get a splendid tumbler of lemonade for threepence?
If I were a landlord I would hire a ‘foring gent,’ with
a head of hair like a poodle, with rings on his fingers,
and give him a stand for coffee, tea, and lemonade, and
light refreshment. I took the proprietor of a cricket-
inn once down to the House of Commons and stood
him the lunch at one of the refreshment bars—it was
the bar in the lobby of the House. There was the slice
of pressed beef for sixpence, the slice of cold pie for
minepence, and numberless other things of a similar
kind, and, above all, the custard puddings, in cups the
size of a large breakfast-cup, for fourpence—the demand
for which is so great that the proprietors can hardly
supply them—and ‘the dog’s meat pies,’ as we called
them in Parliament Street, a substantial small meat pie
beautifully made for sixpence. I pointed out to my
companion that if he would take what I showed him as
a model he might (as he pays rates and taxes, which the
contractor at the House of Commons does not) charge
eightpence for the pressed beef and ‘dog’s meat pies,”
and a shilling for the cold pie of the same excellence
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 163
and quality. He listened, and, I thought, was con-
verted. I visited the cricket-ground which he catered
for on a match day, and with triumph he introduced
me to his new meat pies and custard puddings. Inside
the meat pie was a substance of something called meat
by courtesy, the size and thickness of an old-fashioned
Crown-piece, with an ‘almighty' quantity of crust, and
the custard-puddings in cups reduced by one-third of
those in the Commons, and a substance much resem-
bling ground-rice paste, with no sugar. These remarks
may seem querulous, but they are not. We want to
make cricket and its surroundings a simple and charm-
ing pleasure to all. We don’t believe in clubs worked
by divisions and majorities in committees. We believe
that large clubs with plenty of matches, and good ac-
commodation for those who play, and plenty of real
cricket for those who don’t take part in grand matches,
and simple and cheap refreshments, besides beer and
spirits, will support themselves if each cricket-field is
made the playground, and a pleasure resort for members.
The greed for gate-money and stand-money since
the Australians came here eight years ago has done no
good for cricket as a game—on the contrary, an infinity
of harm. The Australians put us on Our mettle, and
have brought back county fielding to its pristine great-
ness, and the spread of county cricket in England has
been very great.
M 2
164: The Game of Cricket.
CHAPTER WI.
C. R. I C K E T R U T. E. S.
I HAVE no hesitation in saying that the spirit of the
game of cricket is often much better exhibited in good
country matches on an open green than in some sensa-
tion matches in great cities; and the reason is obvious.
In great cities the match is in the hands sometimes of
a tribunal of unknown quality and quantity called a
committee, and nobody knows whom to hang for delay
or laches of any kind. On an open green the cricket
depends much on the goodwill of the inhabitants, who
give annual donations to the support of cricket; and
in return they expect to see some six or eight really
good matches, without any waste of time or ‘hanging
fire of any kind. The ring is composed of many who
have been good men in their time, and who often have
a son or grandson figuring in the eleven, of residents
who have a party for the occasion, of visitors from the
neighbourhood, and, above all, of the lads of the village,
who have worshipped the game from childhood. In
one-day matches the rule is five-ball overs, and no time
wasted in going over, sharp and fair cricket, constant
change of bowling if necessary, men ready dressed to
take their innings when a wicket goes down. In fact,
it is good cricket played by good elevens—for often
known professionals take part in these matches—on a
village green, and they put a precious lot more cricket
into a day than the great stars of the cricket horizon
who are engaged in big gate-money matches ever
dreamt of. Why? The answer is easy; the country
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 165
elevens are thinking only of the game—the committees
in big cities think too much of the ‘gate,’ and many of
the men know nothing practically of the game.
The remedy lies with the Marylebone Club to a
great extent. They can make their own rules for
Lord's, and if those rules are good the rest of the
cricket world will follow them. The M.C.C. sets a
good example as regards time and good management;
but it would be as well if they made and published the
rules (other than laws) which they recommend. It
must be borne in mind that many of my previous sug-
gestions and remarks have been carefully discussed
from time to time with some of the best gentlemen
and players in England, and are not off-hand sugges-
tions made without thought.
I will boldly state that after asking numerous
bowlers of the first class, I have hardly ever found one
who said that he could not just as easily bowl five balls
in an over as four. One officer of a club said to me,
“If you alter “four * to “five,” why not “fourteen"
balls?” That is no argument, as in one-day matches
the best men in England have again and again bowled
‘ five’; so that ‘five' is a feasible quantity, and the
fourteen-ball over is an untried absurdity. This is a
question which must be decided, if ever, by the M.C.C.,
which is composed of the best known and most trusted
amateurs, past and present, in the world. And this is
not a total revolution in the game, like the alteration
of the law of l-b-w, which has proved so unsatisfactory
in every way, and which will be spoken of hereafter.
The question is a very simple one and very easily
answered, and which should be honestly answered by
each bowler independently. If they can’t bowl five
166 The Game of Cricket.
consecutive balls without too much exertion in a match,
what is the waste of physical power in bowling three
dozen or more with a shilling or half-a-crown on the
wicket? It must be an Herculean (?) task, but One
which most are ready for if the money is on. This is
a question for the M.C.C. entirely. Remember that
with five balls instead of four to the over—say, in a
match in which 2,000 balls were bowled (I am taking
these figures from Gentlemen v. Players, 1869, in the
Oval—a three-days’ match, won on the post—in which
2, 145 were bowled), you would have 400 overs instead
of 500—a clear saving of 100 overs. Let us bear in
mind that the year 1887 is the centenary of the
M.C.C., and a golden opportunity for putting the
* cricket house ’ in order.
This is the first question which occurs as regards
saving of time, and we may go at Once into that question.
Why should not cricket be put under more stringent
laws as regards time P Something might be done if the
M.C.C. would pass a rule that all matches played on
their ground should commence at eleven o’clock sharp
on the second and third days, and be played till seven
o'clock; and make laws for the world at large, that
thirty seconds should be allowed between each over, at
the end of which the umpire shall call “Play !” that after
two minutes from the fall of a wicket the umpire shall
call “Play!' that as the clock strikes the hour of begin-
ning the umpire shall call “Play!' and at every period
for recommencing an interrupted game, whether after
dinner, after an innings, &c., at the stipulated time, the
umpire shall call “Play!' I have written the words ‘the
umpire shall call “Play! ”’ so often with an eye to
bore the reader usque ad nauseam, so that he may
imagine what a nuisance the constant call of ‘play ’
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 167
will become to a laggard eleven, and to a captain who
does not do his duty by Ordering his men up to time.
On the other hand, how cheering the sound of ‘play ’
would be to a heart-and-soul eleven who would respond
mentally, if not out loud—‘Aye, aye, sir,’ like the
Sailors. I once had the luck, at the Surrey Theatre,
to be near three sailors, man-of-war’s men, when T. P.
Cooke was playing in a nautical piece with a deal of
pistolling and rescuing of injured innocence, and words
of command through speaking-trumpets. The sailors
gave impromptu ‘Aye, aye, sirs,’ in the pit; and if any
swearing was omitted from the piece they supplied the
defect.
Punctuality is the soul of the army, and it ought to
be the soul of cricket. This would do away with the
horrible innovation of trial-balls. If the bowler wants
four or five trial-balls to get his arm in, why should not
the batsman have a bowler from the ground to keep his
eye in when there is a change of bowling 2 The
‘thirty-seconds' time would prevent two batsmen, as I
have seen them more than once, at each end, from
hammering the pitch like the two grave-diggers in
‘Hamlet,’ and taking their time at it, too. In the old
days of the P.R. a man was knocked down and had to
be at the scratch in thirty seconds; but at cricket now
it seems as if a man may play his own pace. Playing
for a ‘draw is all fair enough if no time is wasted, but
wilful waste of time for a draw is not ‘ the game of
cricket.’ You must have umpires’ watches like guards’
watches. I have just put down my pen and ‘watched
my watch whilst the minute-hand travelled over half
a minute, and, as far as One can judge, the time is
ample between an over. My watch is a Dent's six-guinea
168 The Game of Cricket.
silver “guaranteed,” and just a third of a century old;
and surely county clubs can afford a couple of um-
pires’ watches at that price. Possibly some committee
men who can find money for nothing but gate-money
matches and stands might grumble at the expense, and
fear that keeping time might deprive them of some
shillings at their dearly beloved ‘gate’—but cricket-
grounds are not like a ‘travelling circus’ yet, although
somewhat drifting that way. Take my word for it,
good honest cricket, played Smartly, and up to time,
will draw more people if they see a chance of a result
one way or the other than cricket spun out for gate-
money, as the cricket-loving public are tired of draws.
How frequently we hear people say, ‘ I shall not go ; it
is safe to be a draw On the other hand, in a good
well-played match they say, ‘I must go and see the
finish.’
It would be a very bad compliment to the players
to suppose even that they will try to make a ring against
a move in the interests of the game. I know very
many of them, and have a great regard for them, and
find that although day after day they are working at
the game they are as keen after cricket itself as I am,
and they are the men who really know the merits of
gentlemen and professionals; and I think it would
astonish some of the daws in peacocks’ feathers if a.
jury of first-rate professionals made out a class-list of
merit. An immense market for professional talent has
been opened by amateurs in schools, universities, clubs,
and public matches; and if the M.C.C. wish to correct
abuses in the game, the professionals, by ready obedi-
ence in every particular, will repay what has been done
for them. The blending of amateurs and professionals
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 169
is one of the greatest charms in cricket. Any one who
has played in good country matches near a county
boundary, when you may have one or two professionals
On either side, must remember, if it was his good luck
to make a mark by a sharp catch, or a ‘run out” by a
quick piece of fielding, or in any other point, what
music it was to the ear to hear the ‘Well done, sir,
indeed,” from a player—especially if he was a stranger.
There is only one more point as regards saving time,
which is dealing in some way with the practice of beat-
ing the pitch with the bat. It is a fact that too often
this privilege has been much abused, and—as not a few
think—to waste time. It is almost impossible to make
a rule, as it is hard for a man to get a ‘hot one in the
ribs and not be allowed to pat down a palpable hole
during an over, but there might be a very strong ex-
pression of opinion added to the rule as to what is fair
or unfair, or rather sportsmanlike or unsportsmanlike.
Those who saw the first Surrey and Australian match
of 1886, which the Australians lost on the post, and
the Middlesex and Australians at Lord’s, which Mid-
dlesex lost on the post, cannot forget how the Austra-
lians played up fair for a finish, and never played for
time. As a last word about the waste of time and sav-
ing of time, it is hoped that the M. C. C. will pass such
laws as will enable the captain of either side, if he sees
time being wasted, without any leave, or asking or con-
sulting any committee or officer of any kind, on any
ground, to be authorised and empowered to call the
umpires and tell them that they must instantly do their
duty, and prevent waste of time.
And now I come to one of the very disagreeable
things to witness, and almost as bad to talk about, and
170 The Game of Cricket.
that is “snapping for umpires’ decisions. There is
only one word, and a nasty One. This practice is
cowardly and un-English. Nyren preached strongly
on this vice, as did E. G. Wenman, one of the best
wicket-keepers of his own or any day. It was said of
Wenman that he never got a ‘no’ from an umpire, be-
cause he never asked unless he thought himself that
the batsman was out, and I believe that was true. It
is bad enough when wicket-keeper or bowler does it, or
rather shouts for catch, stump, or ‘l-b-w,’ as the case
may be, but when the out-field take up the cry in
chorus it is shabby work. We want better breeding
very often in the cricket-field. Duelling was a cruel
custom, but there was more chivalry about it than in
cricket conducted in this way. It is really depressing
to a spectator to see this kind of thing, and worse still
when a batsman is unfairly deprived of his innings, as
I have seen many a time. Umpires in this case may,
and should, help themselves, and deliver a proper repri-
mand. When the field shouts, the umpire might ask
the captain, ‘What is asked 9 and who is asking?”
“How's that 9 means nothing, as the wicket-keeper
may take the ball and remove the bail, and it may
be a catch or stump, and that may mean an appeal to
either umpire ; and again, if a wicket-keeper is con-
stantly trying to stump, and asking against a man who
palpably has not moved his foot, it would be a proper
reproof if the umpire said to the wicket-keeper, “You
ought to know better; the man never moved, and you
must have known it.” Captains should stop this sharp
practice. One captain is bound in honour to protect
another against foul play. It would do much good if
strong umpires would sometimes express an opinion in
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 171
this way, and we want men for umpires who will do it.
If they will stand on their own dignity and position,
cricketers will back them through thick and thin. No
man yet was infallible, and mistakes will happen, and
when mistakes do happen, when some of the field shout
“How's that?” because they heard the ball hit something
—not knowing what—and that something turns out to
be the pad or the elbow, it is hard for the batsman to
apply Felix’s maxim to his own case, “Go out quietly,
if given out by the umpire ; and it is hard lines when
long-slip shouts “How's that 9’ to a ball held by deep-
middle-on, which the appellant never could have seen,
and which to every One but the umpire must have been
and could have been nothing else but a bump-ball; and it
is hard lines when a man has run right past the bowler’s
end at the wicket he was running to and has pulled up,
and a ball thrown in has hit the wicket, and some One, in
a tentative way, says, “How's that?’ to hear the umpire
say ‘Out !” Umpires must make mistakes sometimes,
but it is unfortunate when the umpire is the only man
who thinks one way. I don’t believe in the spectators
umpiring; but when one hears his own opinion, which
is unspoken and in his own breast, re-echoed amongst
a crowd of witnesses who were in a line to see, and to
find them all open-mouthed, and all with the same tale,
which tallies exactly with his own idea and that of
those sitting near him, he can only lament when such
mistakes are made, and he ponders and thinks whether
sometimes umpires are not a little nervous and muddled,
and whether they don’t first speak and afterwards think.
You know this howling for decisions is not confined to
cricket, but it pervades other sports. In the days of the
Ring there were constant appeals for “foul,” and I have
172 The Game of Cricket.
observed in the gloaming of the evening in some football
matches some players, who could not possibly have seen
what was going on at a distance, when a roar has
announced that a goal has been made, holding up their
hands and shouting ‘Hands !” or ‘’Ands !’ according to
the taste and fancy of the speaker, and I have thought
to myself, “How like some modern cricket !” Umpires
should assert their own position, and if the question
“How's that?’ is shouted in chorus by four or five fields-
men, and the answer “Out or “ Not out ’ follows as
quickly as the words in a catch, such as ‘Grey sand or
white sand,’ ‘A Boat, a Boat, unto the Ferry,’ &c., the
judgment loses its force and dignity, just as the coroner’s
summing-up does when his court is held in a public-house
parlour decorated with stacks of clay pipes and fur-
nished with spittoons.
So let us wind up this chapter with what the
Americans call a sentiment—‘Let fair play be the jewel
of cricket –usque in Sabcula Sabculorum.
Did ever any one see ‘The Squire at St. James’s
Theatre, in which the old rustic says—‘My lady has
made me master of the ceremonies, and I should not be
surprised, before the evening is over, if I make myself
d d disagreeable.’ I will do my best not to make
myself so in the following chapters, but some home-
truths must come out.
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 173
CHAPTER WIT.
BOWLERS.
THANK Heaven, public opinion put down throwing
deliberately, in which vice the amateurs were great
sinners as well as the professionals. There may yet be
one or two bowlers a little ‘ near the wind” in style,
but there is nothing ‘trappy about them. Their
bowling is in one uniform style, and it is only ‘near
the wind,” and nothing more in effect than really fine
bowling. It is not a case of two fair or quasi-fair balls
and a “chuck.” So let us be content with saying that,
bar one, there never was more diversity of style than
now existing. The ‘bar one is the great want of good
slows. The two greatest masters of the art of slow
bowling whom those of my own generation have seen
were William Clarke of Nottingham and Mr. W. E.
Walker. T have seen them both wear batsmen to fiddle-
strings. Felix, who was kind enough to assist me in
compiling the “Twenty Golden Rules of Cricket,” said
that W. Clarke was the bowler whose balls demanded
more attention than those of any one whom he ever
met, as the variations of pitch and pace were inexhaust-
ible. The ball seemed to come from behind him, and
it looked something like pitching a quoit. A test of
what Clarke's bowling was may easily be seen by
Kent’s performance against him at Nottingham, in
Rent v. Notts, 1845 (“Lillywhite,’ p. 336, vol. iii.),
in which match Clarke took sixteen wickets—and in
Rent v. England, at Lord’s, in same year (p. 352), in
which he took twelve wickets. Tom Adams and Alfred
Mynn could not bear Clarke's bowling. The only bats-
174 The Game of Cricket.
men whom I knew of who could really punish Clarke
were the late Mr. Arthur Ridding (when an Oxford
undergraduate—a brother of Charles and William Rid-
ding, of whom the former frequently long-stopped, and
the latter kept wicket for the Gentlemen) and Jack
|Heath, the Surrey long-stop, and both of them ran in
and hit him all over the place, and the late Mr. William
Baker, mentioned before, who practically was Clarke’s
master. Mr. W. E. Walker, who came later, playing
for Harrow in 1853, when sixteen years of age, and
in Gentlemen v. Players when nineteen, in Surrey v.
England in 1859, got all the Surrey wickets in their
first innings—plus scoring 20 not out and 108. The
Rev. E. T. Drake, of the M.C.C. and I Zingari, was
a deadly slow bowler; and his name still stands out
prominently in the history of the game during the last
forty years. Humphreys, the Sussex bowler, makes
his mark pretty well now. Mr. Ridley sometimes
comes off with the slows at Lord's. Now does it not
seem strange that there is so little slow bowling? The
Hon. Alfred Lyttelton in 1884 at the Oval took off the
gloves and floored four Australian wickets. I forget in
how few balls (it was in two overs); but he says,
jokingly, “that he has retired on that record.” Slows
are worse than useless in these days of easy boundaries
if a bowler gives leg-balls; a ‘leg slow' to a man with
pluck, nerve, and eye means a ‘fourer,’ and more power
to the elbow of the striker. Slows must be deadly
straight, and must mean ‘your wicket if you don’t stop
or hit them.” It is a case of the bowler’s patience
against the batsman’s patience ; and as the slow bowler’s
success depends on studying patience, and his art
depends on wearing out the batsman, the chances are
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 175
that he wins, as few batsmen have a very large supply
of patience, and directly a batsman gets in two minds
he soon becomes ‘ready money to the bowler. The
grand slow bowlers have all been simple in style and
deceptive in delivery. Mr. W. E. Walker, Mr. George
Strachan—who played first for Gloucestershire for birth,
and for Surrey afterwards for residence—and Dr. W. G.
covered more ground by following up the ball after
delivery than any other men on record. It is very
amusing when a match is getting desperate, and an
‘ emergency’ slow bowler is put on as a last resource,
to see the extraordinary useless antics of some slow
bowlers. You See a man sometimes, who is Sane and
rational in ordinary life, and a fair cricketer perhaps,
who suddenly, on being asked to bowl lobs, goes off his
head, and because he is asked to bowl an over of slows,
extemporises a kind of double cut and shuffle hornpipe
step, shakes his hand up and down as if he was rattling
a dice-box, then turns an imaginary Organ handle, and
produces as the result a very one-horse-slow, on-leg;
long-hop which goes over the boundary for four. All
the preliminary antics in the world will not put any
devil into “slows,’ any more than cushion-thumping can
put sense into a stupid sermon. A left-handed slow
bowler to a right-handed batsman is the best for slow
balls, particularly if he can get a break from off to on
for a certainty, as the batsman cannot defend with his
pads as he does to on-balls, and if he runs in and tries
to hit the ball to the off, it is sure to go up ; and if he
tries to pull, he may very likely time the ball wrong;
and if the bowler varies his pitch and pace, slow balls are
not nice company with a good wicket-keeper, point, and
short-slip near the wicket. It does seem Strange that
176 The Game of Cricket.
more cricketers do not practise slows, and I believe that
most cricketers could do something with practice. All
the precision and certainty in pitching are quite useless
without ‘head,” and that it was that made W. Clarke
and Mr. W. E. Walker so deadly. Old Clarke said:—
“I like to give a man a ball just within his reach for
forward play, and when he has played her well and
fancies himself I give him one as quick again or
much slower on the same spot, and very likely he times
her wrong.” In Barlow’s little sixpenny pamphlet he
writes: “To practise bowling you only want a stump,
a ball, a net, and patient perseverance to attain pro-
ficiency; mark the spot of the best pitched balls by a
piece of paper, and try to repeat the operation. By
this kind of practice you will soon acquire for yourself
the style most adapted to your qualities.” Upon my
word, barring Humphreys of Sussex, I can hardly call to
mind any county which boasts a deadly lob bowler now.
On a fine summer day, with a bread and butter
wicket, experience seems to show that straight, greased
lightning, unless it does execution rapidly, is waste of
time. Barlow says that he reckons “freedom of fear in
cricketers of what the crowd will say, is a virtue,” and
let us all say amen to that noble sentiment. Many
people think that half the drawn matches arise from
constant maiden overs, and no result owing to captains
being diffident about taking bowlers off early—they
think about what the pavilion or the ring will say, and
will not try constant change early in the match, and
when a match is practically lost they put on some slow
head bowler who gets several wickets. I repeat what
I said before, that in good country matches the spirit
of cricket is shown more than in many public matches,
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 177
because captains try every move on the board and are
not hampered by the ring. The worst of it is that some
captains do not profit from the lessons, and the same
old game is played in after matches, and bowlers are
put on in a stereotyped order, and a captain, with six
or even seven bowlers on his side, puts on three or only
four of them, and often two fast bowlers at the same
time, followed, perhaps, by a third fast bowler. I have
played in my time pretty often in really good suburban
clubs in Surrey, where they always have good profes-
sional and sometimes very good amateur bowling, and
in all such clubs they never thought of playing without
at least six bowlers, and sometimes seven or eight, and
every one of them went on if wanted. And my experi-
ence was that on occasions when one ‘fancied the
ground, and was getting runs, and quite happy, On
came two fresh bowlers, a fast for a slow, and vice versé,
and the lesson had to be commenced all over again. In
these matches many a “star who came in with the
“family plate ’ on his bat (as a small silver plate was
called) came very short home, particularly if he heard
the remark ‘family plate—half-a-crown on his bails,’
finding the game a precious deal quicker and sharper
cricket than it was in gate-money matches. In many
of these suburban matches amateurs on both sides found
most of the money, and wanted as much play in the day
as they could get. So we may all admit public bowling,
as a whole, to be more varied than formerly, before
catherine-wheeling was allowed, and to be of good aver-
age quality, though it must not be forgotten that Alfred
Shaw, and Tom Emmett, and Dr. W. G. Grace—the
latter quite an infant to Tom Emmett, as he has only
played for twenty-one seasons, while Tom Emmett
N
178 The Game of Cricket.
reckons a quarter of a century or thereabouts—puzzle
a pretty many of the modern batsmen. As regards
modern bowling being so far superior to that of the
past, R. Daft at Liverpool scored between 200 and 300
runs in one innings this last season. These facts go to
prove that there is no magic in cricket in any era. As
I said before, if any modern batsman could have be-
fore him the old files who played in the early days of
George III., when length balls were in fashion, pitched
up slow, they would get out, if they did not play with
a straight bat and great care, just as sometimes they
are got out with the slows now.
The greatest mistake made in modern cricket is in
not having some tribunal in every county as a council,
outside all committees, composed of the best old amateur
and professional players who have played for their
county and in the best matches, who are real judges of
the game, for selecting captains and for selecting elevens.
You may have as many committees as you please, and
very possibly there are very few on them who are
capable of forming any judgment as regards the man-
agement of a match. A man may have that delight of
his heart a good average, may be a good field, and a
good man on his side, and may not have any more idea
of captaincy than a tom-cat. Poor Archer was one of
the finest riders in the world, but what made his brilliant
success was ‘ head and knowledge of pace, and those
are the two great attributes of a good captain at cricket.
This is partly the cause of matches being drawn. Cap-
tains see maiden over after maiden over bowled and
played down, and in the innocence of their hearts are
chuckling at the superb bowling and defence, not know-
ing that they are playing the adversary’s game to per-
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 179
fection, and drifting towards a draw. The knowledge
which they want and have not is that of ‘pace,’ and
they allow the in-side to steal away half-hour after
half-hour, and go on steadily beating them by time, at
the period when they ought to risk something in forcing
the game.
If two men cannot be separated on an easy wicket
by good length bowling, the chances are that one of
them may make a mistake against slows; if high round-
arm slows and straight, so much the better, as with the
modern tension of style the bowler may bump them
down just out of the batsman’s reach for forward play
or into the block hole; and the more varied they are
and the worse apparently to look at, if straight on the
wicket, the better the chance of a wicket. Nothing is
more awkwark, and clumsy, and annoying than a big
bluebottle in a bedroom. You think it absurd to get
up for the purpose of putting him out; but you will,
though most likely you won’t succeed. Mr. Bluebottle
will shut up his noise, and lie quiet in your boots or
somewhere till you put out the light, and then he is ‘ On
the job once more. Slows should be made to the bats-
man just as big a nuisance as the bluebottle—they are
almost beneath one’s notice, but they must be noticed;
but the wicket must be put in peril, if possible, every
ball. Just as the sleepy man in his bedroom, on hear-
ing the renewed noise of the bluebottle, exclaims, in a
rage, ‘D–– the bluebottle, I missed him? (like the Great
Mogul in the old song), and with an angry sweep knocks
his candle, matches, and watch off the table; just so
the irritated batsman may rush out to a slow in de-
spair, and in turning round, see his bails off and the
wicket-keeper grinning with delight. If the slows
N 2
180 The Game of Cricket.
don’t succeed after three or four overs, you have dis-
turbed the batsman's sight and patience, and kept him
on the fret, and if you have a good quick and straight
bowler who has not been on before, and put him on
immediately after the slows, you may possibly hear the
heart-cheering ‘click,” which is only made by the sud-
den disturbance of two bails, whereas if you had not
worried him with the slows, the wicket might not have
fallen.
Many years ago Yorkshire were playing against
Surrey, and the latter had the best of the match, want-
ing exactly 100 to win. The weather was wet, and the
ground like putty. It was considered a certainty for a
draw or win for Surrey, but the fates ordained other-
wise. Yorkshire began with slow lobs, well pitched up
at both ends, and floored the ten wickets of Surrey for
75 runs or thereabouts.
What the Joneses, Browns, and Robinsons say of
many grand matches which are drawn, is that the cap-
tain has not tried all he ought to have known—he has
Rept on a good bowler who has been accumulating an
immense number of maiden overs, which are cheering
up the batsman and the bowler, but are doing no
earthly good towards the match. A county match is,
of course, a fine exhibition of cricket often, but it ought
also to decide who is the best eleven of the two. No
doubt the so-called billiard tournaments are wonderful
exhibitions of what can be done with a cue, and it is
worth paying a shilling, and going into the gallery of
the Argyll Street match-room, and witnessing an hour
or two’s play; but as to interest in the match, of which
you won’t see the finish unless you go on the last night,
there is no more interest in it than in a gate-money
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 181
match, on a bread and butter wicket, which is almost
sure to be drawn, especially when A., the bowler, gives
a whole over of head balls off the wicket, at each of
which B., the batsman, shakes his head, and allows
every ball to pass.
In the Australian practice, which I saw on Mitcham
Green for two or three years, every one of the eleven
had to work at bowling, batting, and fielding, each
bowling for a quarter of an hour in turn; and if English
county cricketers were trained at the beginning of the
season as the Australians were trained by Murdoch,
there would be more bowling and fewer drawn matches
and more interesting finishes. The Australian attack
in the field against Surrey at the Oval, in their first
match against them last season, was a triumph of
wonderful strategy and determination. Abel, who only
got thirteen runs, and was in for between two and three
hours, said that the bowling was so admirably true,
and he was so shut in by the field, that it was almost
impossible to get a ball away. When George Jones
went in number nine, for four to win, he stepped
in and hit the ball over the bowler's head, where
was no field, into the crowd. He told me afterwards,
“If Abel could not score against the fielding I knew
I could not ; and I felt my nerve good and my eye
clear, and “went for it ’’’—and he was quite right.
I hope to see the day when every eleven will have one
or two on the side who can bowl slows, and the first
qualification for a slow bowler is to pitch them straight,
and this is only to be done by practice, and it ought to
be practised.
182 The Game of Cricket.
CHAPTER WITT.
T.B.W.
A WILL-KNOWN member of the M.C.C. of about my own
age, whom I have known and met in the tented field
“since we were boys together,’ and whom I have seen
during his brilliant career in his Public School, Uni-
versity, County, Gentlemen of England, and All-Eng-
land Elevens, seriously recommends that Lord’s, and
grounds with fixed boundaries for spectators, when
their funds will admit, should be boarded round with
a skirting board like a circus, that all hits should be
run out, and that all hits against all solid fences, in
front of which the crowd do not assemble, should be
run out now, and he, moreover, recommends that the
ring should be the largest which the ground will allow
of anyhow. This is the case now at Lord’s and at
Leyton, the new Essex ground; the Oval is, or has
hitherto been, the exception, and it ought not to be so.
Until the enormous crowd assembled at Tlord’s, every-
thing was run out except to the then small Pavilion,
and men were caught out at very long distances.
I received, at the beginning of November, a long
letter from a gentleman whom I have often heard of
but never saw, but who was a year or two after my
time under Fuller Pilch's tutelage at Canterbury. He
was long-stop to the Kent eleven, in many of the
matches against Sussex, and in the Gentlemen of Kent
eleven. He points out the principal causes of the modern
long scores as being—boundary ‘fourers,’ no pumping of
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 183
batsmen, no harassing of field, no getting run out from
hits in long field; in fact, the game has become lazier
and slower. Who can say it has not? I should like
to hear the gentleman put his case who says so. Of
course one of the main causes of the long scores is the
players meeting the same bowlers so frequently. When
Southerton first bowled for Surrey v. Notts, the wickets
fell like ninepins. It was the same when G. Jones first
bowled against Kent; when Shacklock came out for
Derbyshire v. Yorkshire. And, last season, Pongher
floored Surrey at Leicester, and got seven wickets against
them at the Oval for 116 runs, on a billiard-table
ground, and made a great mark against the Australians,
because he is a very good bowler, and was new to the
batsmen. Cropper, too, has bowled well for Derbyshire.
I will give my readers another cause of the modern
long scores—and it is patent to any independent ob-
server—many batsmen systematically defend their leg-
stump with their pads, and not very unfrequently their
whole wicket with their leg, and enjoy a second
innings, after having been clearly out ‘l.b.w.’ although
given ‘in.’ I think I spoke apologetically to the
M.C.C. in a previous chapter about the alteration of
the law of l.b.w. ; and I now will speak plainer, on the
authority of numberless of the best practical amateur
cricketers of England, and say that, as it now reads,
the law of l.b.w.. is the most abused and useless law
that ever was passed. It assumes an impossibility,
which is, that an umpire is to watch the bowler’s hand,
arm, foot, and to define accurately in his “mind’s eye ’
a ribbon of turf eight inches wide, which is unmarked,
and to give an accurate decision offhand. The bats-
men have had their little game for a great many years,
184 The Game of Cricket.
and now, perhaps, in the present year 1887, the M.C.C.
will think of the bowlers.
I have sat many times during the past season on
an elevation behind the bowler, with a full view of the
space between wicket and wicket in a direct line, and I
have no hesitation in saying that I would sooner toss
up for decision about 1.b.w.., than take umpire’s deci-
sion in many cases, for I don’t believe he can judge
from his standpoint with any certainty. Pardon my
saying that I will believe my own eyes before all the
theories that ever were written, and I have kept my
look-out through a racing-glass which has enabled One
to count the blades of grass almost. As to the men
who crane forward to divert balls which palpably pitch
off the line between wicket and wicket, and certainly
would have had the wicket, with their pads, without
making an offer with their bats, they do not come
within the category of cricketers, and I have nothing
to say of them or their ways. I am writing of cricketers
only. If cricket is to be a chivalrous contest, these
men should be shunted.
Now comes this case of ‘l.b.w.’ I have seen men
given ‘out and given ‘in wrongfully, to the ruin of
one side or the other—it does not matter which—and so
wrongfully that it was lamentable. I never put much
trust in the indignant protests of the victim to ‘l.b.w..,’
who returns to the booth swearing the ball never pitched
straight, &c., as a man is a bad judge in his own case.
The great average-makers would stand a great deal
higher in public estimation if they would stand up for
a law which would compel all men to play as fair as
their forefathers did. The umpire, who gave guard
from where the bowler's hand was supposed to be, years
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 185
ago, knew the line of the ball well enough, as he gene-
rally was asked to tell the batsman if both his feet were
clear of the wicket from the line of the bowler's hand,
and if so the batsman could not be out ‘l.b.w. ; * and I
do not think that bowlers ‘snapped’ for “l.b.w. deci-
sions; and I do think that bowlers never asked even,
unless they were pretty certain. Remember this! There
were much fewer matches than now, and umpiring
was a great speciality, and there were trained umpires
enough to supply the demand. A man may be as honest
as the day, but having been a cricketer does not give a
man a judicial mind, any more than a successful pleader
at the bar is sure to make a good judge. Umpiring is
a gift, like many other things; and, under any circum-
stances, umpires should have every assistance and not
be harassed. For instance, the bowling crease and the
popping crease are clearly defined by chalk lines—
formerly, by lines cut in the turf. Why not define an
area in front of the popping crease?
There seems to be only two remedies. One is to
have two independent judges who have nothing to do
with the game, one at each end of the ground, on an
elevation behind the bowlers, in a position similar to
that which I frequently occupied myself last year—who
in alternate overs would decide the one point only—did
the ball pitch between wicket and wicket?—and would
it have hit the wicket? That seems to be the only
remedy if the law is to remain. It is no good telling
me that a man so placed cannot judge, for I know he
can, and judge accurately too. You may tell me it is
absurd and impossible to get such a system arranged.
Say it is absurd if you please—it won’t alter my belief;
nor if you say it is absurd to dispute the accuracy of
186 The Game of Cricket.
modern judgment. I say it is more absurd to see a
batsman hit on the ankle of his pad which was before
all the stumps by a Yorker, and to have a second
innings—which I have seen more than one man have
most certainly—and make a long score afterwards.
You only want a man of honour, with a good pair of
eyes and a racing-glass, with a red and green flag at
either end—green for ‘in,” red for ‘out ’—and on
appeal, which would be given by wicket-keeper or
bowler holding up his arm, the judgment would be
given without any howling or shouting. One fact is
certain, which is that cricketers are tired of the modern
decisions of ‘l.b.w.” º
Now comes the other question. Why not have a
crease marked 9 A parallelogram 2 ft. 8 in. for the
width, and 15 ft. long, of which so much of bowling
crease as lies one foot on either side of the wicket, and
so much of the crease as is covered by the three stumps,
shall be included—that is, each half of the base-line of
the parallelogram would, if bisected, be 16 in. from
the middle stump at either end. This crease would
allow for the pitch of any ball within five yards from
the wickets, and the batsman would have to defend with
his bat— not with his pad—one foot of ground on
the inside of the inner stump, and one foot outside
the outer stump, if a right-handed man; in fact, if the
ball pitched anywhere opposite to, or on any crease of
or inside the parallelogram, and broke on or off on to
the wicket and would have hit it, if his leg was in the
way, out he would go, and serve him jolly well right;
as the bowler would have the full advantage of his
break, or break-back. I have made the crease 15 ft.
from wicket, because few balls pitch shorter than that
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 187
distance; but, of course, if a ball pitched shorter than
15 ft. opposite the end crease, and would have hit
the wicket, it would be ‘out all the same. But for
sentimental objections there is no reason why creases
should not be drawn from bowling crease to bowling
crease. Perhaps the Harrow fellows say that Byron
was a better poet than I am. I deny it. I will back
my Pegasus, Tennyson up.” Listen:—
T}reak | Break | Break |
O ball, on thy way to the stump.
So let’s alter the law
Without any more jaw,
Or you'll give an old buffer the hump.
That’s my own poetry, mind. Written in two minutes,
too. Bother Byron ] This scheme of a parallelogram
was suggested by Mr. Kingston, of Northampton, in
one of the sporting papers. I suggested the same kind
of thing behind popping crease—for the purpose of
guiding the umpire’s sight—in John Lillywhite's Annual
some few years since, but Mr. Kingston’s is much better.
I forget whether he defined the width of his crease. At
any rate, a foot from either side of the wicket does not
seem too much. Absurd, en P Will balk the batsman 9
Will balk the bowler? Will frighten the rooks 9 and
make a bobbery in the rookery P Will alarm your grand-
mother? Supposing that all which modern batsmen are
asked to do is what their forefathers did against round-
arm bowling, on rougher wickets, and without pads—are
they afraid of their shins, or their average, or what P
Now, then, some of you modern batsmen, go at the new
idea with all your force; deride it; try to crush it; but
please bear this in mind, namely, the creases in front
of the popping creases had been tried by two or three
188 The Game of Cricket.
of the very greatest authorities in England on the
ground with bat, ball, and bowler, and the batsman
could not see the crease, only the ball. Remember,
they speak from practical experience. No doubt this
scheme would cramp averages; it would cripple the play
of those who have been for years guarding the wicket
with their pad. No doubt it would shorten matches,
and make a hundred runs (except for boundaries) as
rare as in Pilch’s days, but it would make cricket a
manly, chivalrous contest, by putting it out of the
power of average-hunters to pile up their runs by
questionable practices.
We, of the older school, care more about the chivalry
of the game than exhibitions of sensational cricket; and,
however perfect it may be for average, we don’t care
about witnessing a prolonged performance of a stone.
wall player who hides his two inner stumps with his
pad, and lets off-ball after off-ball pass by him unheeded
without making a try for a run. He must have a bad
opinion of his off-hitting powers. When shortness of
time is running against a match, though a win being
possible, we would sooner see a man, who plays ordinary
careful cricket, who will risk something to get runs for
his side. I don’t want to ‘lay on the butter too thick,”
as I have nothing to do with Eton or Harrow—and the
Oxford and Cambridge elevens prove that players from
other schools are as good as they are ; but for a noble
and chivalrous match, played out for a win or lose, the
Eton and Harrow match stands unsurpassed at Lord’s.
Now let me preach, and pardon my quoting No. 1
again. Of course I have not done any match cricket
for some years, but I was very fond of going to the
practice wickets, and putting my sixpence on the wickets,
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 189
up to and including 1883, since which date and up to
the end of 1886, barring some very second-rate mud, or
dust, or rough grass, the Surrey Club have not vouch-
safed the members any ground worth practising on, and
the Oval is the only ground, within my easy reach where
there are professional bowlers. In 1883, on my sixtieth
birthday, for fun, I had all the ground bowlers at me,
with a shilling on the wicket all the time. My pads—
made twelve years ago—amply protect the knee and
ankle, and are 4; in. wide only from knee-cap to ankle
---simply guarding the shin-bones. I took Fuller Pilch's
guard, from bowler’s hand to wicket, and to avoid ques-
tion of l.b.w. I let each bowler see all three stumps, and
there was no pad defence work. The bowlers, eleven
in all, bowled me 235 balls, with a shilling on the wicket
all the time, and I was never once hit on the pad,
because I learnt my cricket before pads were in exist-
ence, and we went out l.b.w.. for a ball which pitched
from bowler’s hand to wicket, and would have hit it.
I just mention this as a fact in illustration of my theory,
or, rather, Fuller Pilch’s theory, and I believe if modern
batsmen had to play the same old game which their
fathers did, they would fall into it in a week, and
cricket would be again a fair English game, and matches
would be finished instead of drawn, Now, please, dead
silence for the chorus of Solons who were not born till
after the old law of l.b.w.. was altered, and let them
Once more say, ‘Oh, there was no quick round-arm bowl-
ing then l’ And let them give their evidence about
what they never saw themselves. The present system
may justly be called the l.b.w. nuisance. When the late
Mr. Grimston was president at Lord’s, a batsman got
“a hot 'un' on the ankle, and danced about in a natural
190 The Game of Cricket.
Imanner: and some member remarked, ‘I am afraid
he is hurt by the way he limps.” Mr. Grimston’s answer
was, “I hope he is hurt. I hope he will feel it in the
night if he wakes up ; his leg was before all three
stumps, and he ought to have been Out, and would have
been out under the old law. He put his leg in front
purposely, and it ain’t fair cricket ; it is cheating.” I
should very much like to hear one word in praise of the
modern handling of ‘l.b.w..,’ and listen to the speaker’s
arguments thereon. I say again, I would as soon toss
up as take the average decisions on the question, which
are wholly unsatisfactory. The umpire wants assistance
by some visible mark which he can see, and I cannot
See any reason why he should not be so assisted. Look
at the different chases marked on a tennis or racket
court—they do not balk the strikers. In running
matches the judges have the assistance of a tape ; in
racing, the judge looks through a hole to a standard
opposite, which enables him to judge beyond doubt.
But in cricket, forsooth, when a wrong or right decision
varies the result of a match, the umpire is to trust to his
judgment without any guide whatever, but has to give
a vivá voce decision, frequently amidst a babel of voices
from those who ‘thirst for the batsman’s gore’ at any
price. Brother cricketers, this is true; and you can’t deny
it. If an umpire would have the courage to answer—
“Stop a minute, let me look,” and would go behind the
bowler’s wicket, and look down the lines, having noted
where the ball pitched, and then give his decision, it
would probably be right; as things are, it is pure chance.
I have a firm belief in public opinion in the long
run. Public opinion put down throwing ; it practically
has stopped the mad waste of byes which were begin-
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 191
ning to make cricket a slovenly game, and which lost
many matches, and public opinion may yet get the law
of ‘l.b.w.’ amended and improved. I want to make the
umpire’s position strong, and relieve him from admin-
istering an absurd law.
Now mind, in all that I have written, I have not
Once said or hinted that men can’t bowl now well, or
bat well, or field well, or keep wicket well. I don’t be-
lieve that a large average of runs is the only, or even
the principal, test of good cricket by a long way. As a
rule, what a good man does in the field, and for his side,
regardless of his own interest, every day, is of much
more importance in the long run than what he individu-
ally does with his bat. I think since the Australians
first came (eight years ago) county fielding has come
back to its very best form, because the Australian supe-
riority was patent to all, and the sad days of dropped
catches and bad throwing and balls running between
fieldsmen’s legs have gone. There never was a time
when the game can be more firmly established as the
game of fair play if all classes pull together; but if
modern cricketers won’t admit the defects which the old
school of cricketers are pointing out, and say that the
present state of things is perfection in every way, and
think that dividing gate-money in sensation matches
and attracting enormous crowds is the “be all and
‘end all of the game of cricket, it must drift into a
gate-money exhibition game, with a strong pot-house
flavour hanging to it.
As I said before, plenty of good county matches
and good club matches, facilities for practice, and first-
rate accommodation for the public, and good and
reasonable catering, will make a club self-supporting.
192 The Game of Cricket.
We are bound to hand down the game to those who
come after us as pure as we found it, and the future
generation must find the sinews of war as we have
done. If some change is not made in modern practice,
a match will become a bore, like billiards with the
‘spot stroke.’ Let us remember this, too, that every bad
example on public grounds is repeated in the provinces.
CHAPTER IX.
AVERAGES.
IF the present generation like to keep a careful record
of averages in the cricket field of bowling, and batting,
and wicket-keeping, no one has a right to gainsay
them; but as regards averages, different people put
different values upon them as regards standards of the
players, whether amateurs or professionals. Some bats-
men during the season have the pick of the market as
regards grounds, weather, light, &c.; others, so to say,
“sit below the salt,’ and get the fag end of batting in most
matches. In the Surrey eleven, Mr. Horner, for whole
seasons, most patriotically and willingly went in almost
invariably last, or last but one, to the great advantage of
his county, and did rare good service by his cool and stub-
born defence, and has done much towards turning the
scale in favour of the side when those who did not know
him thought it was all over but the cheering. That is what
I call the mark of a real cricketer, ‘playing for his side
and sinking self.” Then, again, in some elevens there are
the gravediggers, who are put almost habitually amongst
the last, and bring up the rear like the stablemen who
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 193
see a horsemanship procession off for a tour through a
country town, and, when everything is gone but the last
car, put on tiger-skin caps and velvet robes trimmed
with ermine over their shirt-sleeves, corduroys, and
anklejacks, and appear as rajahs, shahs, &c., concealing
their homely understandings in the bottom of the car.
The only occasions on which the gravediggers seem
to be promoted to early places are when there is a
Quarter of an hour of time to commence a fresh innings
and the light is bad or the ground ‘trappy.” Their
enjoyment is about as much as that of the old horse at
the Oval which drew the roller, and which came out of
the Ark originally, and which, during the secretaryship
of Mr. William Burrup, was allowed on Sundays “a jolly
blow-out of fresh grass” during tropical heat, when the
apology for grass was like cocoa-nut matting, and the
earth burnt to a brick. And here let me say a word to
captains, in perfect good faith, about the gravediggers. I
am not the only man in England who thinks that they
grow despondent for lack of encouragement, as there is
a sameness in constantly bringing up the rear; and
when a match is well in hand the gravediggers, if they
are fairly safe at keeping a wicket up, ought to be given
a chance of a more prominent place, and of having a hand
in wiping off the runs. This more particularly applies
to young players who are really good; and during the
season, when practicable, one or two of this class Ought to
have the chance of going in first in the second innings.
Every one knows that to a man who has a big heart
and good defence, going in first on a freshly-rolled
wicket and the advantage of playing against a new
ball is very much easier than coming in towards the
end. It cheapens a man being always in the rear. If
O
194 The Game of Cricket.
captains could only see the gravediggers when they get
an off match in the country, against bowling quite as
good as in the grand matches, they would be surprised
to see how well they bat. A captain cannot be too firm
in conducting a match, but his power and authority are
doubly strong if all the eleven feel that he is anxious
to make the match a matter of interest to each of them,
and, so to say, has his hand on their shoulders. I am
speaking the truth when I state that I know many
cricketers who say, ‘I never get a chance hardly.”
Now this is really a thing worth a captain’s considera-
tion. It does not make much odds if his side wins by
five wickets instead of three. I wish the old rule of
the “not-out” man going in first in the second innings
still held, and was made arbitrary.
There is one danger of the average mania amongst
batsmen. With some of the world a place one or two
higher ill the batting list gives additional lustre to the
professional’s fame, and of course he is anxious to re-
tain it; for, say what you please, there is much analogy
between actors and the stage, and between professionals
and public cricket-grounds. The danger is if a bats-
man is putting his average before winning the match
in which he is engaged. If in the interest of the
match runs are wanted quickly, and there are a whole
side of good men to follow on, so as almost for a cer-
tainty to secure a draw if the win is not made, a good
cricketer ought to risk something for his side, and to
forget about the possibility of a “not-out;" and it is
selfish cricket if he lets ball after ball pass unheeded,
because he won’t run the risk of giving a chance, when
a dozen or fifteen runs quickly made, even with the loss
of his wicket, might push the game Onwards towards
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 195
victory. In every sport under heaven the unselfish man
is the best man. Whether this remark is just or unjust,
it is often observed by the lookers-On that A. Or B. is
trying for a “not-out,’ and cares more for that than the
match. I have been carefully through some of the
average lists of last season, and have assayed them
with those who know the all-round play of most
public players, amateur and professional, and we have
agreed as to the true merits of the best men for the
match. On reckoning them up, the names of many
youngsters crop up as better men for their side than
some of the bigger scorers, and the old truth is proved
that youth will be served when youth gets the chance.
There were two young gentlemen whom I saw last year
—Mr. Rowley Pope, of Australia, who played once or
twice as emergency for the Colonials and fielded well
for Middlesex against his own side, and a young gentle-
man whom I saw play at Leyton, and whom I have chris-
tened “The Bounding Deer’—either of whom would be
an aid to any eleven, if they never got a run, for the sake
of the immense area of ground they covered in the field.
Amateur averages are sometimes cruel traps for
captains, who are bothered by hosts of the friends of
A., or B., or C., with ‘You are bowmd to give him a
chance in the county eleven ; and not only that, they
are bothered by remarks of enthusiasts who write them
up in the Press and are good enough to take on them-
selves the choice of imaginary elevens. But captains
should be stone blind and stone deaf to all such appeals
to turn a man out of the eleven, whom he does know
from experience, for a man whom he only knows of by
rumour. Altering a place in an eleven who are win-
ning their matches, for a new star, is suicidal as a rule.
O 2
196 The Game of Cricket.
The new man’s average may be ever so high against
ordinary bowling in the country, or at the University,
but when he comes to try against the most searching
professional bowling in a public match, before some
thousands, the break-down often comes. He may have
been ‘a lion on a lawn in fairly good matches, but
against first-rate counties it is quite a different thing.
His friends say, ‘Only give him time, and he will come
out ; ” but that is rather a costly experiment. There is
such a thing as ‘stage sickness,” which some never get
over. Nerve is the mainspring of cricket.
And here comes in the want which I have alluded
to before—viz. of not having plenty of really good club
matches besides county and sensation matches. A
good match, with first-rate amateur and professional
bowling, with Gentlemen and Players mixed on both
sides, will test the value of any cricketer. Quick
cricket, well and carefully played with five-ball overs,
from eleven to seven o’clock, with all the good training
of county cricket and the less formal surroundings of a
match before an enormous ring, is a test of what a
young player is worth, and, be he who he may, he
should be compelled to go through the mill.
To show the value of these matches, Mr. Parfitt, who
bowled for Surrey for some few occasions when he was
available, appeared in a one-day match for the Surrey
Club and Ground v. The Colts, and bowled so weli that
he was tried for the County the next day with great
success against Lancashire. He was a deus ea; machina,
ready cut and dried, and of great service, as he was a
powerful man and a very quick bowler. The most
amusing thing I ever heard of the importance attached
to averages occurred at a match between two counties,
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 197
which some people might like to classify by calling one
‘the major' and the other ‘the minor’ county. This
classification is an ‘amiable fad,” unauthorised but
harmless. Both counties had good bowling, and before
the match I was talking to a “great gun * in the
‘major county about Harvey Fellows and Sir Frederick
Bathurst as bowlers, and saying that if he and his con-
frères had played the old game of ‘l.b.w.’ against those
bowlers, and had to run everything out, it would alter
their average. ‘They would be no use to us, now,” was
the reply, “they had a low delivery.’ The match came off,
and my friend in the “major county’ went in on a good
wicket early in each innings, and got ‘a pair of them.”
I asked him how that occurred, and his answer was,
“It makes no odds. This match does not count in the
averages l’ So much for averages; they form an in-
teresting record, and no more. The match alluded to
was on a first-rate wicket, and against very good,
though unknown, bowlers. It was a case of funk
of getting out before the yokels, and a case of two
‘ ducks.” Averages are only ephemeral glory. Who now
ever hears of Carpenter’s, Hayward’s, and Tarrant’s
averages?—and they were a trio in one eleven never
surpassed if ever equalled.
If any alteration is ever made which will compel
batsmen to defend with bats only, and if some arrange-
ment is made whereby the whole or greater part of the
* fourer boundaries shall be abolished, and strict law of
‘l.b.w. enforced, there will be a great change in some
of the numbers of the long scores, for cricket has been
made very easy for the batsman compared with cricket
of forty years ago. ‘Pilch only got a hundred runs or
over ten times in his long career,’ &c., say some of
198 The Game of Cricket.
the modern optimists. The battle of Waterloo, with
modern appliances, fought in the same space, would,
probably, not have lasted two hours, for the right and
left wings of the respective “elevens’ were only three
furlongs apart ; but a small butcher’s bill of some
37,000 killed and wounded in one day proves that there
must have been some very quick cricket on June 18,
1815. In comparing fewer runs in longer time of the
past with rapid scoring of to-day, critics must remember
that there were no pads or gloves in Pilch’s earlier
career, that the old reasonable and sensible law of
‘ l.b.w.’ was in existence, and the wicket was nothing
like so true as now, and most of the bowling was very
quick and straight. There was a heavier tax on the
nerve and eye to stand up and play well then than is
required now. There were a good many fingers broken
in those days in batting, but it was curious to see how
few men were laid up by blows on the legs. The
reason is obvious, as if they got their leg in front of
the wicket they were out ; so they learned the art of
playing from the line of the bowler’s hand, and de-
fended at least a foot of ground on the on-side of the
inner stump, and a foot outside the off-stump to left-
hand bowling, which I humbly suggest to modern
cricketers they might and would be obliged to do, if an
area was marked out in front of the wicket, within
which any ball pitching and travelling in the line of
the wicket stopped by the leg would cause the loss of a
wicket and “l.b.w.” Unless something of this is done,
draws will increase ad infinitum, and cricket as a real
game will be as much like cricket of the past as battue
shooting as sport is comparable with hunting for and
shooting wild game, or as a billiard tournament of ten
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 199
or fifteen thousand up is comparable as an amusement
with a match of a hundred up between two ordinary
players in a club billiard-room, with a ring of spec-
tators having a quiet smoke and chaff seated round the
table, and freely sporting their money in bets ranging
from sixpence to half-a-crown. A cricket victory de-
pends upon every man doing his part, and although
getting a lot of runs is, of course, a prima facie evidence
that a man is a good cricketer, it does not follow that
there are not men more valuable in an eleven than some
of the mighty scorers. A man who covers an immense
amount of ground behind or in front of the wicket, who
seldom, if ever, misses a catch in fielding a ball, and
who can be relied on for making a plucky defence in
wet weather and on rough grounds, is far better than
one whose batting depends on billiard-table grounds.
All the talents—bowling, batting, and fielding—may
centre in the same man; but a batsman, however good,
who is uncertain in the field must submit to have his
average heavily discounted. No man is certain for
runs, and may fail when most required with the bat;
but a really fine field in one season saves more runs
than the best man gets on the average.
Let us take long-stopping when that old-fashioned
watch was in vogue. During the whole of one season
Mortlock let only two or three byes; and Jack Heath,
who came before him, was as good; as was Mr. Charles
Ridding, who used to long-stop for the Gentlemen and
for England elevens chosen by M.C.C. This was in the
days when bowling was confined to the height of the
shoulder, and balls did not rise almost invariably as
they do now, but skimmed the ground low, or shot out
of wicket-keeper’s reach. Why, each of the above-
200 The Game of Cricket.
named saved in a match more runs than the biggest
run-getters made, to say nothing of the ready help at
backing up catching, and, by combination with bowler
and a man to back up behind him, throwing Over to
bowler’s end and running many a bye-stealer Out.
There is a kind of all-round man on a side who can
sometimes be met with, whom it is hard to describe,
always cheery, will take any watch, go in with perfect
confidence against any bowling in any weather, and
have a jolly good try; a kind of man who never cares
or thinks of anything, except winning a match if possi-
ble, fairly and honestly. A man of this sort is invalu-
able, and is one who rarely speaks of his average, even if
it should be a good One. I suppose this is drifting into
something which I am trying not to put too fine a point
on. The fact is there is too much mutual adulation
and bunkum in much modern cricket, and cricketers
get talked up, and written up, and put on plenty of
‘side,’ and forget that the best men never put themselves
higher than a unit in One eleven.
A good old custom has died out, which was having
one home, ‘the cricketers’ tent,’ for the eleven—ama-
teurs and professionals—and that was sacred to them,
and was a place where they could talk over the game
without interruption. There was another good old cus-
tom of not making a list of order of going in in the
second innings, and the captain ordered his men in from
the cricketers’ tent according to the progress of the
game, sending a hard hitter or sticker, as occasion arose,
and this arrangement was made in the cricketers’ tent.
Captaincy was an honour which was never dreamt of ex-
cept by the election of the club itself, and no captain
ever moved without his wicket-keeper, who was to him
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 201
what a flag-lieutenant was to an admiral. Innovations
on these old fashions have not improved the game.
T anticipate the cry of ‘Oh, the laudator temporis
acti l’ It affects me as much as water does a duck’s back.
Putting the new pieces into an old garment has injured
cricket, and that is what I am trying to point out, and
that every new move is to make the old game easier
and lazier. These are plain English words, I believe.
I think it would open the eyes of modern elevens to play
on an open down without boundaries, as I have done
many a time. -
CHAPTER X.
FNCOURAGEMENT OF CRICKET.
I DON'T know whether any of the readers have given
me credit for the aim which I have kept in view
throughout these pages, but that aim has been to
advocate the use of every mode of making the best
cricket a pleasure, and a game within reach of all, both
gentlemen and players, who are anxious to graduate
in cricket honours. One of the main drawbacks to ac-
complishing this end is, and has been, that the county
grounds, as a rule, are often crowded to suffocation on
grand match days, and are deserts when grand matches
are not on. I have thought of a scheme for bringing
out young bowlers and young batsmen. And I am
serious. Something analogous to “three shies a penny,’
only done regularly and in order, would be a good thing.
I mentioned before that on grand match days, if the
facilities for wickets were given, county players who
were visitors would willingly give a bowling or batting
colt a practical trial before the match, after the match,
202 The Game of Cricket.
Or in the dinner-hour. Now supposing county profes-
sionals in their summer tours would have a wicket or
two up, as I said previously, before and after a grand
match, open to any one, twelve balls a shilling, and
sixpence on the wicket, all the money to go to the
Cricketers’ Fund, and call it the ‘Cricketers’ Fund’
game. The only thing wanted is that the committee,
or, rather, one or two ardent cricketers told off by the
committee for the purpose, should see that the pitch
was properly made, and nets, &c., ready, and order kept,
and that ‘’Arry? and his friends should not be a
nuisance, and that the thing was real. Only fancy
what good it would do a yon ng colt from a village
green, who was brought up by some amateur who paid
for him, to go home after receiving two or three dozen
balls from one or two of the best bowlers in England,
and to have made a decent mark. And what glory if
would be for a young bowler to have fairly stuck up, or
have even taken the wicket of one of the best batsmen
in England. I have no doubt that some of those who
have Ilever done an unselfish action in their lives—such
as finding a few cricket bats for village boys, or pro-
moting a boys' match on a village green, or supporting
cricket in any way—will say “Humbug / ?–the usual
vulgar answer of self-conceited men—and they may if
they like; but I say that every means should be tried
to make the study of the game a matter of interest to
all, and a means of improving those who really wish
to follow it. An experiment of this kind should be
'real and thorough in every way. It would make the
cricketers practically missionaries for the Cricketers’
Fund, and would bring it prominently before the
public. It would teach a youngster that a good ball
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 203
from a bowler who has a well-known name is not more
impossible to play than a good ball from any one else,
the only difference being that a high-class bowler would
put his wicket in danger every ball.
The reason why counties acclimatise foreigners so
freely is that sensation and gate-money matches seem
to usurp their attention a great deal more than culti-
vating the home nurseries of the sport. The evil com-
mon to great public schools has entered deeply into
cricket, and just as head-masters boast of the number
of fellowships carried off by a small percentage of a
large school, and forget how many boys are far below
the average, because individual teaching is not suffi-
ciently attended to, so in cricket a new player crops
up occasionally and becomes a shining light, and the
committee boast of him and pat him on the back and
give him good advice, without having had any credit in
bringing him out, and numberless others are passed
over almost beneath their noses, and remain unknown
for the want of an opportunity of showing what they
can do. See what Jem Lillywhite did for Cheltenham,
what H. H. Stephenson did for Uppingham, what the Old
Harrow and Eton amateurs have done for their schools
with the aid of players, what Shepherd has done at
TJulwich, bringing out Mr. Wylde, Mr. Bowden, and
now Mr. M. Douglas. It is the want of being within
touch of the head centre of a county club that gives the
club little or no importance in a county.
See, with the Volunteers, how much good it does
them to be with the Regulars for awhile. Those who
became officers of Volunteers in the early days of the
movement, and who meant business, could not speak
highly enough of the zeal and courtesy which were
204 The Game of Cricket.
shown by the officers of the Guards in London in help-
ing them along, and no doubt it was the same in every
garrison town. It gave them confidence to be amongst
those whose trade was soldiering, and it would be so if
youngsters could rub shoulders with professionals of all
counties. It was having good professionals on either
side that taught the suburban clubs, of which I spoke
in a former chapter, good cricket. Nothing does more
harm than getting a large average against second-rate
amateur bowling ! nothing does a cricketer more good
than standing up like a man to one of the best bowlers
in England, and getting a dozen runs well. Those who
have never tried the experiment little know how catch-
ing cricket zeal is, or how quickly the seed grows when
properly sown. There are dragons to be slain and
prejudices to be overcome, but a few resolute and genial
spirits working together in One cause can produce great
resſilts
In old “Bell’—the dear old ‘Bell’ of the past, whose
ghost now permanently haunts the home of the ‘Sport-
ing Life’—there was a cricket story written by Mr.
Sumner, called ‘The Top o' the Broo’ Cricket Club,”
which ran into many chapters, which was one of the
finest and most amusing satires on ‘ bunkum ' and hum-
bug in cricket I ever read. Of course it was a little
exaggerated and coloured, but strictly true, and to the
life. The writer told me that it was a real life picture.
The moral of the story pointed to the good effected by
cricket being started in an out-of-the-way place, and
to the evil wrought by busybodies who hampered it
with their own hobby. One was for resolutions against
fermented liquor, another against profane language,
&c., and the moral of the tale was, that good and
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 205
friendly cricket would and did make men better men,
without any stilted regulations and nonsense, and com-
mon sense won. The hero of the story’s argument
was very good. Quoting from memory, it was to this
effect:- Do you think I am going to say to a lot of
rough fellows, “You shall not play cricket with us, be-
cause you have been heard to swear, or have been known
to have had too much to drink, or because you don’t
go to church on every Sunday morning 2 * No ; I want
these rough fellows to play cricket with us, and to learn
better manners; and they will if you play with them in
a friendly way, and don’t preach to them ; and I want
them to play against good cricketers, and get jolly well
licked, and then they will try and play better, and learn
the game, and will prefer good manners and moderate
drinking to swearing and drunkenness, and will gain
self-respect.’ This is an every-day case. In a country
district where there is a village green, if a few real
lovers of cricket will get an old player or two to enter
into a scheme for promoting the game, and will call in
the aid of a few tradesmen who have sons, or an appren-
tice or two, who are fond of the game, and form a small
and compact band of cricketers who will stick together,
they will have the support of the whole place almost.
Of course they have to run the gauntlet of a crew who
always have an excuse for not putting their hands in
their pockets, by saying that they will have nothing to
do with a club which ‘uses a public-house,” as they call
the old cricket inn, or that cricket leads to bad language,
and drinking and idleness, &c. But promoters have
only to persevere and practise regularly, and make a
good match with some neighbouring district ; and when
the day comes and tents are pitched, and the crowd of
206 The Game of Cricket.
villagers from neighbouring places form a ring round
the ground, many of the waverers who have been 'ticed
away by the mawworm party relent, and become sup-
porters of the club, and the thing is done.
When it is once known that the existence of the
club and the matches depend upon the cricket being
quiet and orderly, you will quickly see how zealous the
crowd are to back up those who support it, and if any
low fellow brings out some vulgar or blackguard ex-
pression, it is met with a stern rebuke of “Better
language there !” and if the offender persists in his bad
conduct, those near him act as a very efficient police on
the spot. The carrying out all necessary details in-
volves a great deal of trouble and time, but the reward
of that trouble and time comes very quickly in the shape
of much goodwill shown by all classes, and also a visible
improvement in the village cricket. It is from such
small beginnings that some of the first cricketers in
England have sprung. It is the good training that
makes successful recruits from village greens and from
public schools, and it is from these sources that the
best cricketers are made. The most prominent school
match in England, Owing to the rush of the London
“upper ten,” and the following of the other tens—tho
Eton and Harrow match—is as remarkable now for good
cricket as for being the sensational match of the season.
When recommenced at Lord’s, after a short interval of
a year or two, after the old School matches between
Winchester, Harrow, and Eton were stopped, in 1855,
the Harrow and Eton match was mobbed out by crowds
who made a large portion of the ground a picnic place;
but in these days, when all the space is given to the
match, and the picnic parties are kept off the stage,
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 207
and there is a fair field and no favour, there is no match
in which good training in the knowledge and practice
of the game is more conspicuous, and the two elevens
set an admirable example in wasting no time. It is a
treat to see them change the watches at each over; T
really believe that twenty seconds is about the time.
You cannot expect players in a County three-day match
to be as quick as boys, but ten seconds more is a full
allowance. To show how universal judgment and train-
ing have become now, any One analysing the elevens
of the two Universities will find members of, perhaps,
seven or eight different schools, and a place in an
Oxford or Cambridge eleven appears to be pretty much
awarded now on the principle of detºur digniori. The
only gain from stopping the annual Winchester, Harrow,
and Eton matches was the breaking up of the old
Winchester, Harrow, and Eton cricket clique at Oxford
and Cambridge. When a week was devoted to the
cricket between these three schools, and each school
played two matches, it almost always happened that a
representative of one of these schools was captain at
Oxford and Cambridge, and the University elevens were
almost entirely chosen from these three schools. Now
it is a fair field and no favour.
I repeat what I have said before, that suburban
cricket much depended on the grand old boys who sat
behind a yard of clay and supported the game; and I
am quite sure that good country cricket in rural dis-
tricts and keeping up the spirit of it were much
dependent on its freemasonry. It was always the
custom for both elevens to dine together regardless of
class or caste, and this custom led to mutual respect,
and professional players’ dinners were put into the cap-
208 - The Game of Cricket.
tain’s bill, and a fund was provided; in fact, when we
made a match, the ways and Imeans were considered
first, as club funds could not be too heavily taxed, and
there generally was a small contribution wanted from
amateurs who played, which was willingly paid by
good men and true, and the system kept out bad men
and false, who would spend any amount on lavender
kid gloves and big cigars, or in ‘ map,” but who would
not think of paying two or three half-crowns towards
the expenses of some of those who could not afford it.
Men will shake hands with the biggest blackguard in
the place for a vote at an election, but will not sit down
at the same table with their brother cricketers. The
reason is obvious : they shake hands with a blackguard
because they have something to get—they won’t sit
down with village players because they have something
to pay. There was another good point about this
system, which was the development of the loyal spirit
of some of the small tradesmen, who could not afford
their annual subscription, but who, if they had a son
or apprentice in the match, would give him leave to
play, on condition that they paid for the youngster’s din-
mer. This is the spirit that fosters the grand old game
and helps it along; and I fear that that spirit is not on
the increase now. There are the ‘locusis' of Crickct,
who devour the green grass off other pastures, and who
do no good to any ground in England; some homeless
set who want their cricket cheap, and who call them-
selves “Anaxyridians,” or ‘Bluebeards,” or ‘Fatimas,” or
some such name—in fact, a scratch team without any
organisation, some of whom are always ready to go in
early and catch a train—in other words, don’t mean
fielding a second time if they can help it, and who
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 209
never pay a shilling. Avoid them : I know them well.
Challenges come in wholesale from them. They want
a ‘friendly match, and no professional bowling,’ &c.,
&c., &c. They are no good to cricket. The real
cricketer likes playing against strong elevens and first-
rate bowling. I always found it the wisest thing to
pay a little more for a good eleven at home, and to play
no matches except against strong elevens—good clubs
who had a habitation and a name. Then you are sure
of a good day’s cricket. These remarks do not apply
to elevens of the same school, or of known home
centres, such as Uppingham Rovers, Harrow Wan-
derers, Old Wykehamists, Civil Service, &c., or the repre-
sentative elevens of Shoolbred's, Swan and Edgar's,
Waterlow and Sons, and great establishments whose
employés have raised themselves and their order to good
young athletic Englishmen, full of hope and energy,
with an eye to making a good position in the world
before them, instead of remaining ‘counter-skippers,”
as they were called years ago, when overwork and want
of leisure on Saturday half-holiday drove them to
despair as regarded amusement.
Nothing does a village eleven more good than the
chance of playing against a strong side of known
cricketers, or a chance match against the circuit eleven
at Assize time, or such an eleven as the Civil Service or
Incogniti, particularly if you’ve a ladies’ tent—as the
ladies like to see gentlemen play, and the gentlemen
have no objection to see a ring of pretty girls. But, mind,
we, the cricketers who love the game, will not have any
“spooning,” or so much as a wink, during the game.
Daft, after his brilliant career, which he is now re-
newing, still sticks to the Nottingham Commercial Club
P
210 The Game of Cricket.
—you may be sure with great advantage to it—and
that kind of thing is wanted in all counties. There
should be one or two cricketers who know and are
known in all districts of the county, to whom should be
entrusted a sum of money for the sole purpose of play-
ing club matches between the club and districts in the
county; and they should be elected by clubs in the
county and be put on the committee as cricket county
members; and they should not be interfered with by
any other committee, match committee, ground com-
mittee, or by bumbledom of any kind. I don’t disguise
the fact that I have a ‘holy horror' of all sub-committees
who work by party and by majorities and become no-
thing more than “small local cricket boards,” who
meddle and muddle everything, and whose names are
unknown outside their own room, and who job for
themselves and friends.
If the use of the ground was available for playing
amateur club matches, and small sums were provided
for aiding country yokels towards expenses in coming
up to the county ground, and none but bond fide
cricketers managed, there would be no more need in
many counties for acclimatised foreigners. There are
counties where there is no local cricket, or hardly
any, and foreigners must be acclimatised to make a
good eleven. The system of club matches of which I
speak Fuller Pilch carried out at Canterbury. He had
a hundred a year for living in the county, playing for
the county, looking after the ground, and teaching
cricket in the county; and most honestly he earned
his money, and no man was more popular. He was a
tailor at Town Malling first, and afterwards with Wil-
liam Pilch, a tailor at Canterbury, and when he gave up
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 211
tailoring kept an inn, and lived thirty-four years in
the county, and died there. I shall never believe that
story of his giving one of the Graces (when he was
umpiring) ‘in when he was “out,’ ‘because he wanted
to see him play, until some one who saw and heard the
event testifies to its truth.
There was another old custom which ought never
to die out in any good village club, which was the
wind-up match and the supper, at which a good many
residents attended, and guests from neighbouring clubs,
and all the cricketers. And when the supper was over
the big room was free to the lads of the village who
wanted to hear the singing. I can honestly say that
I never saw a man the worse for liquor at any one
of these suppers. There was little speechifying, but
plenty of singing on these gala nights, and rare good
singing too. ‘The Chough and Crow,” “Mynheer van
Dunck,” “Wapping Old Stairs,’ and such-like old
favourites, all followed by a “sentiment,’ came on in
regular rotation. Rich vulgar people, whose women-
folk went to church in satins and silks which would
‘stand of themselves,’ were astonished that gentlemen
would sit down with a lot of low fellows in a public-
house. Well-bred gentlemen supported us in purse and
person. The “low fellows’ were a precious deal better-
bred than many of those who tried to cheapen them,
some of whom liked their grandfathers' money a precious
sight more than their pedigree. And we had our reward,
for every good professional who was born or lived in
the place, and was following public cricket in grand
matches, if he had an off day would always play for the
old eleven for nothing, for the sake of “auld lang syne.’
A kind of revival of old cricket suppers exists in the
P 2
212 The Game of Cricket.
Smoking concerts which I see constant accounts of, and
if I was in harness now and playing cricket I should
Strongly advocate asking the professionals who played
for my club or against it to come, and make them
welcome—as cricketers are ‘brothers all.”
CHAPTER XI.
C O U N T Y. E L E W E N S.
County cricket against all other cricket is the thing
for us all to stick to. It does me good when any
Northern county comes South to hear the North-
Country dialect, and to watch the faces of the spectators
in the provincial corner—for they always make one—
and you will find a good sprinkling of soldiers amongst
them, as the Guards draw many recruits from the North.
It is cricket and nothing else with North-countrymen.
They are as keen on cricket as they are on racing at the
Leger. It is all racing with them there. I like, too,
to hear their expressions—‘Be a man or a mouse, hedge
nought,” or “There will be a roof [rough] back-end to
this job, if they don’t watch it,” and such-like. There is
nothing like a county match for interest. When poor
Tom Humphrey took his benefit many years ago I sold
between seven and eight pounds’ worth of his tickets in
a Yorkshire corner in as many minutes. His benefit
cards were very cleverly and humorously illustrated by
a young artist, a friend of mine; they were one shilling
each, and there was a voucher attached which gave the
purchaser free admission on any one day. One of the
Yorkshiremen asked—“Is it for Humphrey’ [Hoomfrey,
as he pronounced it], “one of the Surrey boys—Joop
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 213
[Jupp] ‘ and Hoomfrey, who scored over a hundred and
fifty at Sheffield before they were separated P’ On
being answered in the affirmative the questioner took a
crown's-worth, as did many of his friends, and said to
them—“Now do as I do and tear the admission ticket
off, and pay again on the day.” And so many of them
did. One likes to remember these things. g
Gentlemen and Players and North and South matches
now lose their interest owing to the absence of some
of the principal players, being away with their counties,
and those matches cannot be realities unless a truce is
declared for a week between all counties to play these
matches in, with all the best men present.
And now comes a very big question — whether
cricketers, amateurs and professionals, should not make
‘ county' the thing before all other matches, home or
colonial. It is most important that the best men of a con-
tending county should appear on local grounds. In the
first place, the best men in strong counties have a name,
and that alone draws spectators and brings money into
county clubs; and, secondly, those who play for the
weaker counties successfully, and either make a score
or bowl one or two well-known batsmen, acquire con-
fidence and courage. This does good to cricket, just as
Old Clarke did good by taking the best men in England
round the country, commencing with the year 1846.
Gate-money is an absolute necessity to cricket now for
the support of it, and one of the reasons that county
cricket has become so popular is because we seldom see
a “ duffer' in a county team of any kind; things were
otherwise too often, and not so very long ago. For this
change we have to thank public opinion to a great extent.
And now comes a grave question. Is a repetition Of
214 The Game of Cricket.
intercolonial matches every other year a thing to be
desired for the good of cricket, or for the sake of
gate-money P It would be a good thing for cricket
occasionally to receive the Australians, say every five
years, even to the extent of letting seats for what they
will fetch and dividing the gate-money, if the receipts
were freely expended in promoting cricket in districts
where there was good cricket and a scarcity of funds,
and in playing a large number of club matches, home-
and home, between all districts of the county in which
an eleven could be formed, and if aid was given to them
with a small sum for bringing up youngsters who could
110t afford to come—for remember that there is very
little money in rural clubs as a rule. If this was done,
we should have the pleasure of seeing our Australian
cousins play, and of promoting cricket at home at the
same time; but if nothing of this kind is done it is a
question of ‘gate’ et praeterea nihil. It is Sanger’s Circus
without the procession. We don’t want Australian
cricket to become a “ drug' in England. After putting
by something for a rainy day, the surplus funds should
go towards increasing cricket in the county and pro-
viding extra accommodation for the sixpenny visitors,
of whom I know many who walk up a dozen miles to see
matches, and who only have a shilling in their pockets
to spend after paying their admission. I am not a
ITyndman or a mob patriot, but I have a great respect
for this class who have the love of cricket at heart, and
who know more about it than half those in the pavilion,
who reproduce what they read in the papers as their
own, with comments of their own also, which are not
particularly valuable. The interest in county cricket
is continuous, match after match. And the pleasure of
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 215
witnessing it is in seeing and appreciating the good
points of the game without the aid of the claqueurs of
A, or B, or C. Last year the Australians made up their
minds to come at the last moment, and interfered very
much with county cricket. They did us an immense
deal of good when they came in their full strength in
1882, and carried away the palm ; and they made us
polish up our armour and sharpen Our Swords, and the
general exhibition of county fielding in England now is
far above what much of it was here eight years ago
when they first came. If they came every five years
we should be sure to have all their very best men.
And this gate mania leaves a strong suspicion in the
minds of many that the waste of time in matches is
somewhat attributable to a desire to make them spread
over three days. Why, even lawn-tennis—a pretty
garden game, and one which affords much exercise and
amusement anywhere ea:cept on a cricket ground—
has been turned into a gate-money affair, and it was
supposed to be purely an amateur amusement ; and
football is so confessedly “gate-money’ that one club
appealed to the Court of Chancery to prevent a match
being taken away from their ground.
There are two county matches which one seldom
hears of now, and which ought to be played and made
very important matches of, namely, Gentlemen v.
Blayers of the County; and One side of the county
against the other ought always to be played with full
strength on both sides, and played out. The elevens
should be fairly chosen by a committee of bond fide
cricketers, who know the county well, if we want the
match to be a fair test of individual talent in the county,
and every amateur who plays in his county eleven
216 The Game of Cricket.
should, at any personal sacrifice, play in both the
matches.
If the gentlemen in any county happened to be very
deficient in bowling, they would have a rare leather-
hunt perhaps the first year, and would set to work and
practise bowling before the next year, for many gentle-
men can bowl as well as professionals if they would only
work at it. If the Gentlemen beat the Players four times
between 1840 and 1850, and twice single innings,
principally by their bowling, why should not gentlemen
come to the fore now? Because they don’t practise.
I have written it often before, but it may meet a
fresh eye and make a convert iſ I repeat it again. The
five gentlemen bowlers who were “all in at the same
time were Alfred Mynn, Sir Frederick Bathurst, Harvey
Fellows, George Yonge, and Charles Taylor. Alfred
Mynn and Charles Taylor were playing every day
almost. Sir Frederick Bathurst used to be at Lord’s
playing tennis constantly, and would bowl to any mem-
ber of the M.C.C. for hours together for amusement.
Harvey Fellows practised every evening at a single
stump at a net when he was at home in Hertfordshire
and could not come up ; and George Yonge, who lived
at Eton, and played first for the School eleven in 1841
(same year as Harvey Fellows), bowled to the Eton
boys every day when not playing in a match. Now,
how many amateurs are there of to-day who have ever
worked at bowling as they did? Mr. A. G. Steel is one
of the brilliant examples of to-day—the doctor is very
deadly sometimes; Mr. Roller seldom goes on for a
change without making a mark; Mr. Horner and Mr.
Christopherson have been very successful, and Mr.
Robertson of Middlesex is a precious deal better than
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 217
some think; but taking into consideration the enormous
spread of cricket, and the hundreds of great schools
where cricket is taught, it is very clear that amateur
bowling has not at all advanced with the game, simply
because amateurs will not try. It is the fault of those
horrid nets, and so-called cricket practice means Only
batting againt a professional. I don’t know whether I
hate the nets most on cricket grounds, or in a river,
when some blockhead of a keeper drags the river because
he has nothing better to do, and kills all the pike and
perch in a deep clay river, which nature intended for
them, and makes a ghastly attempt at breeding trout,
for which the river is not fit.
The way to pull counties together is to go on the
lines of Essex, whose club, as I said before, is managed by
a committee of twenty-four—two drawn from each of the
twelve different districts—and to find out by diligent in-
quiry gentlemen who have county cricket really at heart.
But members of committee should attend as often as
possible. If the same few only are present they get
cramped ideas, and are apt to become meddlers and
busybodies.
Southern counties have One great enemy to fight
against, which is, “Non possumus.’ The rise of Kent was
attributable to the support of noblemen and gentlemen
in the good old times when being a substantial country
gentleman was a rare fine thing, and farmers were
prosperous, and money was kept in the country instead
of being spent in Tondon and on the Continent, and,
before railways, the country town was crammed full
with visitors, and innkeepers subscribed well, and cricket
supported itself. But now things are different. In
many places in the North which we hardly know the
218 The Game of Cricket.
names of, players in a good cricket-match will draw
thousands from the great manufacturing towns, who
will encourage any sport; but in the South it is different.
They have not the money now, and county gentle-
men cannot guarantee them as heretofore. I saw in
the Globe of November in last year, that in thirteen
counties gentlemen who had been told off for sheriffs
(‘pricked for sheriffs, I believe, is the correct word)
begged to be excused on the ground of poverty. It
is hard lines, but it can’t be helped.
The late Mr. Chamberlayne made the success of
Hampshire almost by supporting cricket as loyally as
Lord Sheffield does in Sussex, or Lord Londesborough in
Yorkshire. Mr. Chamberlayne would take the eleven in
his four-in-hand and put them all up, and the Hants
eleven then was entirely an amateur team. It is almost
a question for rising counties now if it would not be
worth while to go back to the old fashion and play any
county with two given men, and get two great stars down
once or twice to play on their side and ensure a good
match. Acclimatising ground bowlers is only ‘French'
for the same method. Why, even Sussex when in great
form used to get Pilch given to play against England.
There is before me now a cricket-ball which has been
kindly lent to me by Mr. Fenner, who for a quarter of
a century managed John and James Lillywhite's cricket
warehouse in Seymour Street, Euston Square, with which
ball W. Lillywhite bowled eleven wickets of England in
1840 (Sussex, with Fuller Pilch, against England).
Mr. Fenner, in taking over the old stock and premises
from the Lillywhite family, now has amongst his stock
the best specimen bat of the Old Hambledon era (1750)
I have ever seen. It comes up in the hand as light as
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 219
a modern bat; and I am by no means sure that in these
days, when cricketers are going in for thick handles,
the handle of that bat would not please them. All
counties have their rise and fall. When the grand old
ICent eleven died out, and all the towns of Kent were
within hail of Lord’s and the Oval, the cricket seemed
to decline in the county, and forming a good eleven was
like making bricks without straw. The fire is by no
means too strong now, though Tord Harris has blown
it well alight, and has done his work well and no mis-
take. I have seen—only a year or two since—at Maid-
stone a splendid match between ICent and Lancashire
in fine weather and only a few hundreds present.
Gravesend draws well, and so will Beckenham, but
Canterbury is very slack except in the grand week.
No doubt the Canterbury week is a great aid to funds;
and, although I hate cricket mixed up with fiddling
theatricals, cricket picnics, and so on, yet all these
things are useful to draw in money; and when we see
Inow, as we do, that the quality of the cricket in the
grand week is of the best, and that the money is ex-
pended in the county matches, we have no right to say
anything. The ladies look very charming when they
walk about the ground between the innings, and the
playing space is not curtailed in any way, as the officers
are kind enough to pitch their tents and keep the fair
sex amused out of the way of the bowler's arm, and
cricket is in no way sacrificed to fashion.
Some years ago, with the exception of the first three
days, the cricket appeared to be a secondary considera-
tion. What with public school and University men,
and local talent, and two world-known players to help,
the candle may be well lighted up now, and in many a
220 The Game of Cricket.
county One or two grand matches might become a
fashionable lounge, just as the Canterbury Ground does
on the Ladies’ Day, when the beauties of Kent come in
swarms; and it does not matter if they sit with their
backs to the game, and have a picnic with the officers
and listen to the band. They look very charming, and
a fashionable crowd pays, and old-fashioned cricket will
grow. Q.E.D.
I think all cricketers are anxious to see the rise and
spread of cricketin counties which are young now. Surrey
did well in setting the fashion, and Lord’s has done
well in the encouragement of these counties at Lord’s,
and capital cricket is lo be seen there. Those who like it
may talk ahont major' and “minor’ counties, but any
section which takes upon itself to confer titles must
define an order of precedence. Will the self-appointed
Herald’s College of cricket tell us if Derbyshire now is
* major ’ or “minor’? I still believe in Derbyshire, and
was very sorry when Shacklock was claimed by Not-
tingham. What is the order 9 Derbyshire in 1886 did
not win a 111alcli against Onc of the Horald’s College’s
* major' counties? Leicestershire did. If both county
elevens go to Court, which is to kiss her Majesty’s
hand first—Cropper, the present Derbyshire bowler, or
Pougher, of Leicester? The cricket Herald's College
must decide.
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 221
CHAPTER XII.
A I D S T O C R T C K E T.
DR. JoHNSON in his latter days expressed a regret that
he had never had so much wall-fruit as he should have
liked. Now that my enjoyment of cricket practically is
at an end with the bat and ball, I regret that I went
through life without a catapulta Oddly enough I never
saw one till the other day at Wisden's, when they were
kind enough to set up one for me to look at ; and if I
had known how simple the thing was I certainly should
have had one. Of course a good bowler is far superior;
but the beauty of a catapulta is, that if you have only an
acre, or even half an acre, of meadow, and make a pitch
with a catapulta and a net and one assistant, you can at
any time practise defence, and I believe a lady could
work it. The late Mr. Grimston used it much at Har-
row, on the school ground, at One time. It is not an
entire substitute for a bowler by any means, but an
admirable thing to carry on a bowler's teaching. For
instance, if a boy is weak in playing to leg balls, and
flinches—and some boys, and men too, have that weak-
ness, which can only be overcome by hard practice—
you can give him ball after ball, slow at first, and by
gradually increasing the pace you will cure the weak-
ness which the bowler has pointed out.
The catapulta, like Topsy, “grew.’ It is impossible
to say for certain whose original idea it was. Mr. Felix
was a great advocate of it, and invited the present Lord
Bessborough, Mr. Charles Taylor, Mr. Alfred Mynn,
and Pilch to see it at Blackheath; so practically he
222 The Game of Cricket.
* published it. Mr. J. Spencer, of Blackheath, a well-
known amateur cricketer, a friend of Mr. Felix, pos-
sessed the first catapulta—a rough iron machine, made
by the village blacksmith at Blackheath; and Mr.
Greenlaw, Mr. Felix’s mathematical master, had a finger
in the pie ; so for certain Blackheath was its birth-
place, and it had good sponsors. The catapulta, when
perfected was introduced first at Harrow. I don’t
think the use of it has been very common, or I must
have seen one before ; and now I am left lamenting at
my former ignorance of its properties, at a time when I
was living in the country, and actually had “three acres
and a cow –Ull that T had addod a catapulfa, to the
establishment In rural districts where there are no
professionals, if any country parson who encourages
cricket and has a meadow would make a pitch and get
up a little subscription for a catapulta, and train the
lads of the village to learn how to stop and play a length
ball, the fame of his parish would soon spread. It is just
as easy to teach boys good cricket as bad, and the first
training is the thing. “Felix on the Bat' was the best
practical book of my day, as he was the first writer
who, by diagrams and admirable explanations of them,
taught the science of cricket. It has been much pirated
of course, but that is the fashion of the day. Felix was
left-handed, and was not always a certain bat, as he
Often played on rough grounds; but, on his own day,
when he once got well set on a fair wicket, he was a
splendid batsman, and possibly the man never lived
who could cut a ball more brilliantly, or play a ball
forward better, and as ‘point ’ he was unrivalled. The
book is out of print, and I fancy out of copyright, or
nearly so. Why not reproduce it?
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 223
In respect to learning cricket by a book, the best
sixpennyworth I have seen in these days is Barlow on
‘Batting, Bowling, and Fielding,’ which includes Pilling
on “Wicket-keeping.” It is very short and very practical,
and every young cricketer, and old cricketer too, should
learn it by heart. I don’t know the publishers, and
never spoke to them in my life, so this is not an ad-
vertisement for friendship ; but I speak of the book as I
find it. Barlow should punch his publisher’s head for
not putting a date to it, and then punch his own for
not putting a date to his address to the cricketing world.
Perhaps, owing to going twice to Australia and back,
and having two Tuesdays, or some other days in the
week, which people have on a voyage to the Antipodes
and back, he got into a ‘month of Sundays,’ and forgot
all dates. We must gauge his bat when he comes our way,
as there is only one theory in the book which I advise all
cricketers to avoid. He writes, ‘The rule says that a
bat shall be 4} in. wide, but I notice many batsmen
using them 43 in. wide, and it is good policy to have
one as wide as allowed.” The confession is honest,
the recommendation bad. There was a great outcry
when the gauge was restored (which, by the bye, should
not be discontinued), and all sorts of excuses made
about bats swelling, and getting broader from wear,
&c.; but the remedy of the gauge was needed, and bat-
makers now who have a name to lose will lose it if they
make bats over gauge.
I will only quote two passages from Barlow. Now
I have pitched into Barlow, as I loved him, and finding
one blot only, shows that, in my humble judgment, the
rest is good. “The player who thinks the most glorious
thing in cricket is to send the ball out of the ground
224 The Game of Cricket.
will be likely to sneer at the idea of run-getting apart
from batting being termed “an art.” Nevertheless an
art it is, and one too much ignored. To some of us a
stolen run comes with a sort of pleasant fragrance of
the past. Stolen fruit is said to be the sweetest; not
less so a stolen run. Some players appear to treat run-
getting as a nuisance. T quite admit that a drive for
five will gain an amount of applause denied to the man
who by a good judgment, and carefully watching the
opportunity, adds five singles to the score; but both are
of equal value to the total, and no effort should be
allowed to slip of building up the score, when you are
in will, a partner who thoroughly underslands you and
will act in concert with you; runs which seem other-
wise impracticable will lose all their difficulty, and the
distance between wickets is wonderfully reduced.” This
is the sentiment of a real cricketer, who plays for his
side, and that is the only stamp of cricketer who is
worth his salt. Again he says: ‘There is a practice I
adopt once or twice a week, in my tuition of young
cricketers, which I think worthy of imitation. I place
them in the field as though a match were being played,
and throw the ball to different members, varying the
height, speed, and course of the ball, expecting them to
get it back to me in the shortest possible time.”
The two passages which I have quoted are fair spe-
cimens of the practical advice in the book, which is a
kind of memoria technica, short, pithy, and all good.
Pilling on Wicket-keeping is much funnier than ‘Punch’
of to-day, and quite worthy of Thackeray. There is
nothing absolutely new in the book, but it puts before
the public a précis of precepts adopted and recommended
by all the best men in England from time immemorial,
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 225
whose teaching is that cricket practice, to be worth
anything, ought to be a cricket-match on rehearsal.
There is one theory which is arguable, when Barlow
recommends ‘throwing up 100 yards to the bails: ’ as I
think it beyond the power of most men. And here,
perhaps, Barlow will excuse me if I substitute for his
recommendation another theory, the practice of which
is within the power of most cricketers, which is: Train a
young cricketer who has grown into his full strength
to return a ball at eighty yards from the wicket by
making a low quick throw of about sixty-five yards drop
with a fifteen yards’ bound. Daft was brilliant in re-
turning a ball in the long-field much in this way, I think,
as were or are Mr. C. E. Green, Mr. Alfred Lubbock,
Mr. W. H. Game, Mr. M. P. Bowden, and many others.
Throwing well to the wicket is one of the most impor-
tant parts of the game. You seldom see an overthrow
from a long bound. Overthrows come mostly from a
long throw, which comes a Yorker or half-wolley to
wicket-keeper. ,"
Mr. Game could do the hundred yards’ fall easily ;
but when he was at Sherborne School, and first played
for Surrey against Yorkshire as a boy of seventeen, he
made his return with the bound from incredible dis-
tances, and astonished Pooley not a little, who re-
marked, “The last amateur we had in the long-field
was a two days’ post off me, and when Mr. Game sent
me back the ball I never was so astonished in my life,
and,” he added, ‘ that young gentleman, for his fielding
and throwing, would be a gain to any eleven if he never
got a run in a whole season.” The diagrams in Bar-
low’s book are very good also. Barlow was one of those
good men and true who came to the fore with a rush
Q
226 The Game of Cricket.
and stopped there. He played in Gentlemen and Players
at the Oval in the year when there was a little differ-
ence between some of the professionals about cricket,
and emergency men were recruited. Barlow came on a
kind of Saturday-to-Monday visit, and has stayed some
few years in the front rank, and all cricketers must
hope that he may stay till his hair is as white as
Daft's, and then break out again like a colt with his
200 or 300 runs, as Daft has done. If a man can throw
pretty well, for certainty, a ball with a long bound
and low at eighty yards distant, he will find no dif-
ficulty in fetching her back pretty quick at ninety or a
hundred. There is a new underhand throw which is
not worthy of imitation. The underhaud throw puts a
spin on a ball, and the wicket-keeper has enough to do
without further difficulties.
If the captain is not wholly a man of leisure he ought
early in the season to come down at least once a week
and look after his bowlers and colts, and if he only
attends and captains the eleven when a match is on
there should be a club captain for club matches and
looking after colts and practice, and no man could do
that better than a player who can be thoroughly trusted
and well paid, and you avoid the danger of having some
cockney Jack-in-office as deputy captain, and you will
be sure of Order and punctuality. The keeper arranges
the shooting party—and who can arrange and manage a
club match, which is pretty much a scratch team, better
than a good player? Any One who has ever tried it must
remember the misery of playing with an amateur captain
who “fancies himself.” No One but a fool ever captains
a match in which he has a good old player on his side
without working with him. On the other hand, if a.
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 227
player was appointed to manage a match in which there
were one or two amateurs, who were real cricketers,
and knew the game, he would be sure to consult one of
them. Mutual confidence and mutual respect between
amateurs and professionals are the sheet-anchors of
cricket. It is a simple farce to send down a list of
eleven men with a note to A or B or C to ‘captain,”
when A or B or C may have four or five of the side
whose play he does not know ; whereas if the same good
player is sent match after match he will know all the
eleven and what they can do, and make the whole
thing go with a swing. When Fuller Pilch managed
the Beverly Ground at Canterbury, he used to make the
match and captain the eleven ; that is, he would tell
us that a regiment or club wanted a match, and would
play the Beverly if he could get an eleven to go, and
recruits came in quick enough, and most charming
matches they were. Sometimes there were off-hand
matches at home, commencing at two o'clock, and there
was no dinner, but simply a booth with Sandwiches,
bread and cheese, and a bit of cold beef for any who
wanted it ; but the cricket was real and true, and we
had the old-fashioned six-ball overs in these matches;
and every match with Pilch as captain was a lesson.
On one grand occasion Fuller dropped an easy catch,
and remarked in his dry way, ‘I dropped her a-purpose
to teach you young gentlemen that cricket is a game of
chance, and I thought, likewise, as it is now September,
that Mr. Blank [whom he had missed] might send me
Some birds or a hare in hopes I might drop him another
time.” Poor old Fuller | He was the best I ever saw
for a keen love of the game and for teaching all he
Q 2
228 The Game of Cricket.
knew ; he never spared himself, and never ‘sponged?
for a sixpence in his life.
As things now are, in many clubs the machinery is
far too cumbersome for getting up matches, and there
is too little freedom of action. When a cricket tavern
is let at a high rent the landlord has to “gnaw the
profit out of the public in half-crowns, and he thinks
himself robbed if there is a one-day match and the
regulation luncheon is not provided. Very possibly he
is right, as he takes the ground on condition of supplying
all the refreshments; and if there are matches at which
the ordinary luncheons are not provided he will not go
out of his way to supplement the wants of the cricketers.
In grand matches there are a large class of visitors who
want to sit down to a big feed, but in friendly one-day
matches young fellows only want some cold meat and
potatoes and bread and cheese. The present system
prevents the possibility of constant club matches at
small cost. The managers begin at the wrong end.
They ought to find a tenant who is fond of cricket and
cricket surroundings, and of cricketers, who will carry
on the tavern with longer or shorter prices, according
to agreed tariffs, and will be able to provide an eighteen-
penny, half-crown, or three-shilling luncheon, as ordered,
just as at a restaurant. But he cannot do this if the
tenant is “stuck’ with a heavy rent at starting. It is
not the true policy of the county club to make a profit
out of a public-house. It is by this one-eyed policy
that all the funds are expended on gate-money matches
in a prodigal manner, halfpennyworths of cricket are
doled out over the counter for the county local cricket
by those who are regardless of the interests of cricket-
ing members. In fact, some clubs assume the name of
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 229
‘ county clubs,’ and starve out the local cricket of the
county, which they ought to foster. The result of this
is the acclimatising of ground bowlers, which, though
admissible in counties which have no cricket centres in
them as nurseries for recruits, and no central county
ground of their own, is a poor subterfuge to adopt by
counties which abound with the raw material but don’t
know how to foster and encourage it.
In club one-day matches, which, of course, are
generally decided by the first innings, there was a good
custom of sending in candidates for spectacles, and
putting in those who were unfortunate enough in their
first innings to come out with the fatal duck.” It was
a great consolation for those who retrieved their laurels;
and if any one won the unenviable honour of “a pair of
them,” and the landlord informed him on his return
from the wicket that half a dozen glasses of beer were
chalked up to him by a few friends who wished him
better luck, he had only to pay and look pleasant at
having had his health drunk in his absence, and to
return thanks in a neat speech.
You see I am riding again my old hobby—that
Cricket is a game and nothing else, and the worst
enemies the game has are those who make it a business,
and drive hard bargains and get the club a bad name,
and are very clever at spending other people's money.
This is a class of men who know no more of cricket
training or of the game than the conventional “man in
the moon,’ and whose sole idea is a big ‘gate ’ on match
days, and their own twopenny-halfpenny swagger.
Every department of the game depends on courtesy
and good management. I could tell you when I see an
eleven going into the field whether they have a good
230 The Game of Cricket.
captain or a bad one, just as I would tell you by going
into a strange stable and speaking to a horse whether
he has a kind groom or a rough one : a horse will tell
you himself. If not kindly treated he looks suspiciously
at you, and seems to expect a rating or something worse;
but if he is kindly treated and you speak to him in a
low voice of encouragement, he turns round his honest
head and makes room for you to come up and pat him,
and he acknowledges you as a friend of his immediate
master the kind groom.
CHAPTER XIII.
T H E L A S T G R O W L.
T HAVE tried hard not to travel over the same ground
twice, and, to the best of my powers, I have treated on
all the topics which in the eyes of us, the old-fashioned
school, demand attention. We all know that there really
is too much cricket for those engaged in it, as a busy man
whose engagement book is full for the season has, at
the least, four months’ continuous play without inter-
mission, besides a considerable amount of travelling and
exposure to weather; but at the same time we feel the
absolute necessity as far as possible to keep the same
elevens together, and not to alter them. Nothing is
more injurious than substituting a new man in the
middle of the season, unless he is exceptionally good
and reliable, and at home in any match. To use a
vulgar expression, it ‘crabs’ the whole eleven. The
danger to cricket at the present time is the neglect of
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 231
the home game, and its growing stale. The home
game is a kind of Cinderella, and remains unnoticed
in the kitchen. There is a disinclination amongst
young England of to-day to belong to a second eleven,
but really that is nonsense. Only eleven men can play
in the first eleven, and all the others must be in the
second eleven. It occurred to me once in my experience
that our club had to find two elevens on the same day.
The secretary, by accident, had accepted two challenges
for the same day against two strong clubs, and we only
knew it two days before. There was no help for it, but it
came heavy on the finances, as our matches always cost
five pounds apiece, and the unexpected match was twelve
miles away across-country, practically impossible to get
at by railway, and it came to a case of hiring a wagonette.
There were some real good souls in the place who were
never backward in an emergency with an extra sove-
reign, who all helped ; and we recruited every available
man and youngster who was a good One; and one trades-
man who had been obstinate before let his son come,
and another his apprentice, and so on; and we gave up
one or two of our eleven and took in some of the
recruits, and put a good face on it. We and our
Opponents at home had a supper that night after our
match, which we won on the post, and were having a
social evening; and when the time for our guests’
departure had just arrived we heard tremendous cheer-
ing outside from a pretty good crowd who were running
alongside the return drag, and we knew before they
drove up that we had won; and I think, if possible,
Our late foes, whom we had beaten at home, were more
pleased than we were. Of course there was a fresh
evening to spend, and as the night was young we used
232 The Game of Cricket.
it up to the dregs—and possibly a little beyond, on the
Quiet, as our police were all cricketers more or less. I
think it would be a good thing for counties which have
sent their eleven away to some distant match, to play
at the same time a strong home match on their own
ground, say a two days’ match, and let the players in
the home match be playing for a vacancy in the first
eleven should one occur. Of course they would have a
professional or two, and it would put them on their
mettle. I don’t believe in matches without professional
bowling on both sides, except in University or School
teams; you must have a bowler or two who will keep
well on the wicket.
We, the old-fashioned people, think there is too
much fuss about champion counties, and averages, and
records, and hero-worship, and vain-glory, which cast
a shade on a great deal of very excellent cricket, which
is very enjoyable, and well worth seeing, and in which
you may see many points of the game as well developed
as in a match before ten thousand people. They may
take it from us as history that the modern school did
not invent the game.
The North and South match at Lord’s last year
was really the North and South in name only, as a
large number of the stars were away, but it was very
good cricket. Two seasons ago fifteen thousand people
probably were within the walls of Lord’s, and because
it was a Harrow and Eton match all went home and
Said it was one of the very best matches they ever
saw. If it had been Mr. Brown’s Academy against Mr.
Smith’s School they would have said ‘it was only some
boys playing.” The match really was one of the best
and pluckiest that any one could see in that or any
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 233
year, as the attack and defence of both schools in the
last innings of each was most masterly. I saw a
Barrow boy in the Goose match at the beginning of
October last make the best catch at short-slip I saw
last season : if it had been at Lord’s in the Eton v.
Harrow match all London would have ‘gushed.” What
we have to do now is to keep cricket well on its legs, on
its own merits, and not let it slide into a sensational
gate-money game. We are on much thinner ice than
people think. One of our great holds on the game is
gone owing to the change of times since the old fogies
sat behind their yards of clay and cultivated the home
game as they did their cabbages. When they did that,
many players in suburban clubs were good enough for
any county, for they would not have ‘walking gentle-
men’ in clubs, and cricket was cricket. When the
day’s play is over now, every one, of course, goes home, or
out to dinner, or somewhere, so the old social tie is gone.
I am sure the remedy of making ordinary cricket as im-
portant as grand matches lies in trying the experiment
of making the county ground the playground for the
club, and of having a strong management, under which
members can be sure of good practice wickets for
batting and for making up matches of their own, if
they please—and, above all, plain and reasonable re-
freshments. The days of pork-pies, Banbury cakes,
and sponge-cakes, with a ‘change of bowling’ consisting
of a chop or steak, are gone. -
A good system of home cricket promoted by real
cricketers, and managed wholly by real cricketers,
would draw to the club many good young players, who
are obliged to take refuge in some team of “Wanderers’
or “Scramblers’ or ‘Ramblers’—a homeless club without
234 The Game of Cricket.
head, tail, or middle, members of which all want to go
in first and all to bowl at once, who vote long-stopping
ow and fielding a bore.
Cricket only wants a good home, and no interference
by fussy committee-men, and a certainty of good, steady
play. These advantages are the cause of so much really
good cricket on village greens, where children of seven
or eight years old begin to play; and the older chil-
dren of from eighteen to eight-and-twenty only want
facilities in county grounds for practice and matches
when the ground is disengaged, and members will come
in wholesale. Last winter I amused myself by going
the round of what are called the ‘minor theatres —not
* minor’ in size by any means—and having been a great
playgoer in the days of Macready, Phelps, Helen Faucit,
Mme. Westris, Mrs. Nisbett, Charles Mathews, old
Farren, &c., I know something about it. I saw at one
or two of the minor theatres some acting quite up to
the modern standard at the sensation theatres, which
are crammed every night. No doubt numbers of people,
because the minor theatres so called are in unfashion-
able places and depend on low prices, would look on the
really good acting as second-rate; but it was not. Just
so in cricket. There are lots of men who are not stars
who have the nerve, pluck, and quickness of hand and
eye which make a good player; and if one of this class
suddenly comes to the fore, those who have not taken
the trouble to look for him pat him on the back, and
brag of him, and give him good advice This was the
case with Shacklock, with Pougher, and with Spillman,
whose merits were discovered by the captain of Mid-
dlesex, who found him and brought him out.
We, the old school, laugh at the idea of any modern
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 235
section setting itself up as a tribunal for classifying
counties and players as first-rate and second-rate, and
we say, ‘Lord’s we know, and the M.C.C. we know ;
but who are ye?’ A public cricketer is always in an
awkward position as he gets on. He is getting stale
and must know it, and there is a chivalrous feeling
amongst cricketers which prevents the fact being hinted
at. It would be a splendid berth for a man who cannot
stand the wear and tear of constant three-day matches
to make him captain of the second eleven. All gentle-
men and players would look up to him, and with rest
and quiet he would come out like a three-year-old again.
There is always a grateful feeling towards old cricketers
who have done their best, and if they are straight—
and very few of them have proved otherwise—they have
lots of friends. There are one or two wealthy gentle-
men whom I know, who are heads of large firms, whose
example is much worthy of imitation, as they provide
employment for young players when the season is over,
and keep them engaged through the winter. This is
doing real good to cricket in every way. There are
always, on the other hand, a lot of idle loafers, some
with money, some without, who like to be ‘Dick,’ ‘Tom,'
and ‘Harry’ with public men of all kinds, whether
cricketers, rowers, runners, or anything else, and this
class has been the ruin of many a young professional.
Don’t we know that class well ? There is a peculiar
slang air and swagger about them. There is a cock
of the hat, a wag of the head, a high action and elevated
elbow in taking a cigar out of the mouth which says
‘pothouse' and “low billiard-room.” These are the
men who talk about the ‘Leviathan’s average and
‘Jack's maiden overs.’ These men poison the atmo-
236 The Game of Cricket.
sphere all round them. It matters not whether a cricket
match, a rowing match, or a race is going On, it is
impossible to be out of earshot or eyeshot of these
mongrels. If they are flush of money, and there is a
crowd round them, they call for a bottle of ‘fizz.” They
cannot understand that in every cricket match some
new feature may appear at any moment, and that real
cricketers are always ready to be learners of a game
the intricacies of which are inexhaustible. I am now
one of the old buffers who sit by and watch the game,
which I have known well and loved well for over half a
century, and I have tried to tell the simple truth, and
I have not wilfully exaggerated anything. I am sure,
from all I see and hear from all those who have stuck
to cricket as a simple English game, that it is absolutely
necessary now, before it is too late, for all great clubs
to soundly consider the position of the game, and for
the lovers of it to keep the power in their own hands.
Tt is to be hoped that the M.C.C. will, on their hun-
dredth anniversary, take stock of things as they now
are, and consider how glaring abuses can be corrected.
They must know that the law of 1-b-w, as now admi-
nistered, too often is a farce; that shouting at umpires
by the field is an exhibition of vulgarity and bad man-
ners, and unfair play.
The first umpire who will complain to the captain
will receive the acclamation of all true cricketers. Cap-
tains complain if the crowd shout, but they don’t
reprove their own men for doing so. It is time there
was a row about it, and if the law-makers won’t alter
the law the crowd will make their own laws. When
men ‘threw’ the crowd hallooed, and the crowd were quite
right. They came to see fair play, and they protested
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 237
against an infringement of it, and they were the first to
put it down. As I said before, I am not a Hyndman or a
mob orator, but people can’t have their own claqueurs
on a cricket-ground, and those who play sharp cricket
must take the consequences. Such things don’t often
occur; when they do, they lower the standard of the
game. People say the crowd never shout at Lord’s.
That is so, and for a very good reason; for any cricketer,
gentleman or professional, who is suspected of even sharp
practice at Lord's would never be asked to play again,
and the causa querela, never occurs twice. The tribunal
at Lord’s is strong enough to deal with any difficulty.
The only row at Lord’s occurred many years ago, when
the Eton and Harrow match was played in a small
roped ring, and there was a quarrel about a ball being
under or over the ropes in connection with a run-out.
Grey-headed old men wrote thundering letters to the
* Times” about it ; and rumour—which, we know, is never
wrong—gave credit to many dignitaries of the Church
being seen returning in hansoms with a black eye or
bloody nose, and the brims of their shovel hats torn off or
knocked down over their eyes, or with one gaiter torn off.
I have not said one word against the best play of
the present being inferior to that of the past, but I do
say this, that there is such an immense quantity of
cricket that a great deal of it is not so thorough as the
generality of it was when I was a young man. An
engagement to play in a match then meant an engage-
ment to be there in plenty of time, to remain till the
match was over, and to do as you were told by the
captain as readily and obediently as a soldier. But I
must say this, that on the whole I think captaincy
was better, as matches, not being so numerous, created
238 The Game of Cricket.
a great deal more local interest (as village-green
matches do to this day), and there was an irresistible
public opinion expressed by those who had been in the
game from boys, which kept captains in order, and I
do not think any man was ever captain who did not
thoroughly know his duty. It must be patent to all
the world that good amateur bowling is at a miserably
low ebb—simply from want of trying. Would it not pay
to have a winter bowling-shed, thirty-five yards long
by ten yards wide, on a county ground, which would
make a capital dining-room in the summer? Green
cocoa-nut matting would do admirably to bowl on, and
there would be room for a wicket-keeper, but no batting
under any circumstances, or you will have that dreadful
‘’Arry’ spoiling everything. Old Lillywhite learnt,
or at any rate practised, bowling in a barn—as did
Southerton. Why cannot amateurs do the same?
With every facility offered to them by abolishing all re-
strictions in style, bar throwing, the outcome is lament-
able. The long list of those who have topped the
hundred runs is a pretty good proof of this fact, and
of the absurdity of the law of l-b-w, and of the bat and
pad play, and of boundary fourers.
And now I think I have exhausted my budget as
regards the game of cricket on public grounds—i.e. as
regards open abuses of the game. From my earliest
remembrance of clubs, since I left school until now,
the greatest and most dangerous nuisance to cricket
has been the meddling and muddling of Jacks-in-office
and busybodies, and so it will be till the end of the
chapter, and our business is to fight them tooth and
nail. The unfortunate thing is that hundreds of real
cricketers go on grumbling all through the season, and
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 239
when the general meeting of any club comes round
they won’t attend and speak up. There are no bullies
and cowards who cringe and lie down so quickly as
your Jacks-in-office when collared, and unless they are
collared pretty soon cricket will drift into gate-money
and pothouse. For abuses will go on increasing every
year; and real cricketers will not act with Jacks-in-office.
I saw in the ‘Sporting Life’ not very long since
that a general meeting of Lancashire secretaries had
been held, and that nearly one hundred clubs were re-
presented. This is a noble example to be followed
throughout England. Let the real cricketers make
arrangements for following their example, and have a
cricket guild for promoting good home matches in the
county. If they wait till the central committees do
this they may wait till Doomsday in many cases, where
the busybodies on the committees are lions in their own
committee-room but unknown nobodies in the county
itself. In cases where there is a good central com-
mittee these volunteers will be very welcome, and cricket
will be promoted thoroughly.
I may give a friendly hint to paterfamilias as to
encouraging cricket pure and simple in almost any
neighbourhood where a cricket-field can be got. I
don’t mean a swell cricket-ground with pavilion, with
all modern appliances, but a field good enough for a
game of cricket. When I was a youngster, during some
period of my life I was in the same boat with many
others who were at home—without any cricket. How it
was commenced I know not, but everything has a be-
ginning, and certainly a club began, and the beginning
of our club was made by a kind offer of a beautiful
natural cricket-ground in the park of a gentleman, who,
240 * The Game of Cricket.
I think, gave us the tent. There were many gentle-
men’s families scattered about within a few miles of
the ground. At first two practice evenings were inau-
gurated, which were regularly attended for real practice
games; afterwards we came to matches which were pic-
nic matches—i.e. different families had to draw every
third match for their lot in the picnic dinner, and
brought a pigeon-pie, quarter of lamb–whatever the
things might be. The subscription was a guinea, a year
for each family, and from this small beginning sprang
the well-known ‘Gore Court Club,” near Sittingbourne
in Kent, which has been evicted from its old original
site, owing to the propelly being gold, after hef ween
forty and fifty years of prosperity there. It has, how-
ever, sprung, like a phoenix from its ashes, on a new
ground nearer the town. Esto perpetua."
The old game is as sound and good as ever in itself,
and will grow if properly cultivated. If Ilord Harris is
as lucky in cultivating ‘baccy as he has been with
cricket in Kent, we shall have the ‘Man of Kent’ cigars
next Canterbury Week combined with Kent cricket. It
is the good cultivation which is needed, and, above all,
clearing the ground of weeds, both in cricket and ‘baccy.’
With courtesy, firmness, and good-breeding, cricket
Imust grow.
I have been much amused to hear from A or B,
“By Jove, you gave it hot to C or D in your last maga-
zine article !” the fact being that I never knew the C
or D named. People know little about cricket and
" I cannot resist menſioning the fact that the club owed its origin
to the liberality and kindness of the late Francis Bradley Dyne, Esq.,
of Gore Court, half a century ago; and I must also mention with affec-
tionate regard the name of George Webb, Esq., of Hartlip, a good slow
round-arm bowler, who was cricket-father to all the youngsters in East
Kent. -
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 241
cricketers if they think it worth any one’s while to
attack C and D, who are not worth the ink and trouble,
about their twopenny-halfpenny Swagger. I have
written against the abuses of class cricket, promoted
for the self-glorification and self-interest of vulgar
and selfish men, and the danger of allowing that class
to have any place of power or influence, and I mean every
word I have said in these pages, and I have very good
reason for saying what I have. The danger we are in
is the possibility of cricket drifting into an exhibition
of hirelings under the name of a county eleven, and a
“ practical ignoring of the county for the sake of the
gate; and the antidote to this evil is putting the power
—or ‘the balance of power,’ speaking politically—into
the hands of real cricketers who are known and re-
spected in the county, and stamping out the ‘cricket
vestrymen.” In all times the influence and example of
good and true men has leavened the whole game more
than resolutions and rules.
CHAPTER XIV.
TRAINING OF SCHOOTIBOYS,
T WANT to say something more about training boys in
days past, and I suppose one public school was much
the same as another, and I give my own experience
between the years 1835 and 1841 inclusive. It is the
fashion now for parents to write to the newspapers
about compulsorily fagging at games at public schools,
and for some editors to back them up. The writers
know nothing about the subject. The experience of
B.
242 The Game of Cricket.
the world is that if you throw a large body of boys
together the weakest will go to the wall, unless there
is a recognised system in everything ; and the con-
sensus of opinion of all old public-school men is that
the antidote to petty bullying is an authorised system
of fagging. School life is a life of discipline, and of
teaching a boy, not to do what he likes, but what he
must, and to knock him out of habits of ‘loafing ”
without a purpose ; and it is much better for him to
learn all manly sports which will be a pleasure to him
hereafter, than to loll over the fire in the winter and
sit in the pastry.cook’s in the summer. He who is
fagged should remember, when a fag, that all the
prefects have been through the same course themselves
as he is now subject to, and he will soon learn also
that if he does his best, and is willing, the labour
will be comparatively light. Moreover, he should re-
member that he is paving his own way to a place in
the first cricket and football teams of the future if he
does his best.
When I said in a former chapter that a junior was
never allowed to touch a bat for two years, I should
have said bar two occasions, which two occasions were
for their own matches. The ‘poor little boys,’ as
philanthropists (9) style them in the newspapers, to
whom it was such a hardship to watch out compulsorily,
played matches, commencing in March, “Junior Eleven
of College against Commoners —who answered to
the Oppidans of Eton—on the top of St. Catherine's
Hill, a plateau on the downs, to which the school went
at seven o’clock in the morning on holidays, once a
week at least; and these matches, plus the cricket fag-
ging, laid the foundation of the great performances
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 243
of some of the best amateurs in England. Boys
who would play matches on an open down in a
bitter east wind in March, and sometimes in driving
sleet or even snow, were beginning at the right end.
The old system, too—before professional bowlers were
thought of at schools—of match practice, day after
day, was a good one ; and that system is what I want
tried again on public cricket-grounds, by making the
experiment of having match wickets pitched, with bails
on and ground well prepared, every day. At school it
was so every day, one place being set aside for the first
eleven, and an equally good One for the second eleven.
The present Bishop of St. Andrews—Charles Words-
worth, of immortal memory, now alive and well, who
was second master of Winchester, an old Harrovian,
who never meddled, but Occasionally made suggestions
—advocated the institution of a juniors’ ground, and
suggested to the prefects that on holidays and half-
holidays he would give a dispensation from all roll calls
to boys playing in school matches from two o'clock
until eight P.M. if the prefects would give up cricket
fagging before one o’clock on those days, and let the
little boys play their own matches; and this was the
second of the two occasions when fags had any batting
on the school ground. These minutiae are not recorded
in a spirit of aggrandisement of Winchester, but to
give an idea of what cricket training was before the
days of professionals and school coaches. As William
of Wykeham five centuries ago founded his college
for seventy scholars, and as Only space enough was
provided for them, when the school was increased by
130 commoners, of course a separate ground was
wanted for them, and obtained near the school. The
R 2
244. The Game of Cricket.
rivalry between College and Commoners being very
great, constant matches were going on, which, of
course, were admirable practice, and capital tests for
choosing the eleven of the school which should be
sent to Lord’s in the summer against Harrow and
Eton. As one of the tests for coming talent, the
College and Commoner captains—one of whom would
be captain at Tlord’s—early in the season in May tossed
for choice, and each alternately had his pick from the
two clevens indiscriminately ; and two mixed clevens
of College and Commoners combined, one under the
College, and the other under the Commoners’ captain,
played a match which created the most intense interest,
as practically all were playing with the hope of places
in the Lord’s eleven. It was called the “two-guinea
match,” as the head master was supposed to give the
winning side two guineas. The custom dropped out,
but the name remained. So you see how boys, by
following the old traditions of the school in sports,
worked out their own success.
This two-guinea match leads me on to another
favourite theory which I have spoken of that it is
most important that matches should take place between
the best eleven of Gentlemen v. the Players of the
County, and also a match of one side of the county
against the other. This theory is on all fours with the
old school system of the two elevens being mixed, and
playing under the two captains. Nothing would be
better for cricket itself than for a young unknown
cricketer to punish the county bowling well, or for
another unknown cricketer to rip up the wickets of
some of the county cracks. Many captains are ready
enough for the show and glitter of a grand match, but
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 245
they won't go and look after home cricket. They don’t
like being bowled out on the village green.
Teverting to the school cricket : there were always
three matches between the first elevens of College and
Commoners, and three between the second elevens; so
that when a foreign eleven came against the school, the
two captains of College and Commoners could always
put their hands on the best eleven of both sections of
the school. Moreover, a well-established second eleven
formed an admirable reserve for filling a chance
vacancy in the first eleven. Now all this series of
Imatches was handed down by tradition and regularly
followed, and out of this self-taught system sprang
Some of the best known amateurs, including, amongst
others, the celebrated Mr. William Ward, and in after
years his two sons, who both played for Winchester at
Lord’s ; the late Rev. Robert Speckott Barter, Warden
of Winchester, who gave the name to the ‘Barter hit ’
—the half-volley; Sir Frederick Bathurst; W. Mey-
rick, who in 1826 scored 4 and 146 against Harrow,
and 50 and 38 not out against Eton ; the present
Lord Penzance (Wilde), who bowled twenty-two Eton
and Harrow wickets at Lord’s in 1834; A. J. Louth
(before named), who did havoc among the Eton and
Harrow wickets in 1835 and 1836, and bowled nine
Players in Gentlemen and Players in 1836; the present
Warden of Winchester, the Rev. Godfrey Bollis Lee, a
very fine bowler, who bowled for Oxford and Hants;
Williers Chernocke Smith, known as ‘the immortal
Podder' (a name taken from Pickwick), five years in
the Winchester eleven, three in the Oxford eleven,
and who accompanied W. Clarke to the north with the
All England eleven in 1846; Charles Ridding, who
246 The Game of Cricket.
was almost necessary to the Gentlemen’s eleven,
to long-stop to Harvey Fellows and Alfred Mynn;
William Ridding, the splendid wicket-keeper; and the
late “Jemmy Dewar,’ who was king of cricket in the
Crimea, and who in 1845 (the year of the tie match
between Winchester and Eton) knocked over twenty-
two Eton and Harrow wickets. He was a very power-
ful fellow, and a splendid left-handed bowler, and, like
Sir F. Bathurst, was the finest bowler in the army.
This is not written for school glorification, but simply
as a Sample of Self-taught school training, and as a
proof how self-taught cricket acquired by steady per-
severance will bear good fruit. Cricket learnt in this
way gives the confidence and self-reliance which are
essential to the game. The training of this kind is
the proper basis, like riding without stirrups, when a
child, is the proper teaching for the future horse-
man. Every time he falls off his donkey or pony the
boy learns better to stick on with his knees and to
acquire a good seat. 4
It is all very well, when a youngster comes out as a
colt, to talk of funk and bad luck. Great allowance
for nervousness used to be made by examiners in school
examinations, but they soon found out whether a boy
had been properly grounded or not, and whether he
knew his grammar thoroughly. Just so I say about
cricket. You can tell by the way a colt takes up his
bat and walks to the wicket and receives the first ball,
whether he has learnt cricket properly, beginning at
the lowest rung of the ladder, or is a hothouse plant,
who has never done the hard work, but has been
schooled into a slipshod player to easy bowling. Hard
work alone will make a cricketer.
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 247
Another thing which boys learnt at school was um-
piring, as, when out of their cricket-fagging, in all
minor matches they had to umpire; and in more
important matches the next choice for the eleven would
umpire. So they learnt the game.
I have seen the Harrow training of the present day
—in fact, of last season—and am convinced that they
are put through the mill as thoroughly as hard work in
the field can do it; and that the eleven “go to school’
in the cricket-field, and work as hard as if they were
playing against all England. Above all, they learn
thorough discipline. I have not seen Eton trained,
but their performances at Lord’s in 1886 and 1887
prove that they are well drilled.
The only boy I ever knew who turned his back on
cricket for good and all was my late friend and school-
fellow and breakfast fag, Frank Buckland, the best
Cook and coffee-maker who ever lived. He told me, in
after life, that he was never under the same roof with a
cricket ball knowingly, or ever intentionally looked into
a cricket-field after his fagging was over. But this is
not to be wondered at, as from his earliest childhood
he never was happy unless he was in the hedgerows
after birds and snakes or hedgehogs, or in the river
after fish, or up the sewers after rats. I must quote
one thing from his life, written by Mr. Bompas, his
brother-in-law, in proof of his zeal for natural history.
When Buckland was in the Life Guards a troop horse
died from unknown causes, and the carcass was brought
to a convenient place for Frank Buckland’s post-mortem.
The horse was cut open and left in a yard. An officer
wanted Frank, and asked a sentry if he had seen him.
Tableau—the Sentry, with a grave face, Saluting his
248 The Game of Cricket.
officer, and speaking with soldier-like precision, “You
will find Mr. Buckland, sir, inside the charger.’
In my own parish, where there was a village green,
we tried a system very similar to that at school, for
whenever we had a practice we picked out of a host of
aspirants for fame four or five handy boys to watch
out, and encouraged them when they stopped a ball or
made a catch with an extra copper or two ; and we,
moreover, and our professionals also, helped the boys’
eleven, and made matches for them. I have seen the
boys’ eleven—for whom cricket paraphernalia were sup-
plied by a small subscription—playing against another
parish, and five or six hundred people standing round,
for it was really worth seeing, as they knew the game
well, and played it well. One bowler, of about four-
teen—little ‘Cock Robin,” though not the least quarrel-
some—in case of emergency was about as handy with
his ‘bunch of fives’ as any boy I ever saw, if any one
said a word against the honour of his side or parish.
Time passed very quickly, and at sixteen or seventeen
these youngsters would be men enough on a practice
night to try their hand against any of the eleven who
were out on the green, at sixpence on the wicket, and the
professionals awarded the money; and there were always
some of them who would give any one who was in good
form as much as he could do to play truly without giving
a palpable catch, if he did not get bowled, in either of
which cases the batsman forfeited his sixpence. On a
practice night it was not a case of “I am going to
practise,’ but ‘ We are going to practise.” When we
were going to play a good match there were usually
one or two vacancies, if we were playing away from home,
and the youngsters were drafted in, and well taken care
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 249
of, and many of them during a season ‘ came off,” and
first tasted blood by getting their travelling expenses
and dinner, and a crown into the bargain. The same
system existed in other districts in the county no doubt,
and it was entirely from this class that the grand Surrey
eleven, which beat all England in the year 1858, were re-
cruited. There were three amateurs, the late Mr. F. P.
Miller, the present Rev. Charlton Lane, and Mr. F.
Burbidge, who played, and the remainder of the eleven,
all Surrey born, were taken from the village greens.
This training is one of those things which county clubs
Ought to support with influence and money.
As regards matches I have from time to time en-
deavoured to fathom the question as to cricket having
been played for large stakes subscribed and paid down,
and the outcome is as follows: The late Mr. Grimston
told me that he had gone deeply into the question,
and especially with members of the former Duke of
Dorset’s family, with which he was himself connected.
The Duke of Dorset was a great patron and backer,
but, from what Mr. Grimston could learn, no tradition
ever existed of his having won or lost large sums
at Cricket. I saw numberless bills and scores of a
hundred and twenty years ago pasted on the back
of an old screen at Colonel Butler’s family seat at
Hambledon, some headed ‘500 guineas a side, some
“1,000 guineas'; but the colonel, who was an old
gentleman, and whose father was a staunch Old Ham-
bledon cricketer, knew nothing about the money ques-
tion as regards staking the money. When I was a
boy bills of county matches were headed “100 guineas
a side'; but there is no actual evidence of money
having been posted, Mr. Grimston thought it was
250 The Game of Cricket.
public-house brag. Lord Bessborough—to whom I sub.
mitted the late Mr. Grimston’s opinion on the subject—
thinks the same. The only case he knows of money
passing was in a match between All England and Not-
tingham, in which he played, and he had to share
with ten others the bet of 100l., which the England
side won ; and on going through Derby on his return
the hawkers were crying the papers, “Greatest match
ever played, for a thousand guineas a side l’ The
only case I know was that where a hundred pounds
were posted and paid for A. Mynn’s single-wicket match,
and doubtless many single-wicket matches were played
for money frequently. No doubt that early patrons
betted—perhaps heavily—but there is no evidence as
to posting and dividing stakes. So much for that
subject. For what it is worth—and I really think it
worth a great deal—I repeat what I have heard from
good old players, whose memories are their sole
authority, that very forward play came in directly after
round-hand bowling was introduced; but it was a hap-
hazard game. The same witnesses say that there were
a few wicket-keepers who stood up and stumped like
the men of to-day against the quick under-hand
bowling, though of course with nothing like the cer-
tainty of wicket-keepers of the present age.
I have purposely kept away from hero-worship of
past cricketers, but have been now drawn into com-
mitting myself to mention them through a bond fide
request from a young cricketer, who, I have reason to
believe, represents a class which I much respect, namely,
a class who do not profess to know everything before
they were born. My younger brethren of the willow
say that they want to hear, from some one who saw and
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 251
knew the players, a description of Mr. Mason’s celebrated
picture of “ Kent v. Sussex.' So, answering to the whip,
I will attempt in the next chapter to act as showman
to that picture, and to describe the principal figures in
it, whose names have been eminent in the cricket world.
I have either known personally or have frequently
seen on the cricket-ground all those whom I shall
describe from my own experience, with the excep-
tion of four–Hammond, Bushby, G. Picknell, Mr. G.
Barton—for a description of the three former of whom
I trust to ‘Lilly white’s Scores and Biographies.” I
understand that some of the figures are portraits of local
magnates, but as I Only attempt to pick out those who
belong to the history of cricket, if I have omitted any
cricketer of importance, I must give as an excuse the
same answer as Dr. Johnson did to the lady who asked
him what was the cause of his making such a mistake
as to describe a “pastern as a horse’s knee in his
dictionary (which he did). “Ignorance, ma’am ; sheer
ignorance,” was the doctor’s crushing answer. Such is
my answer as regards any possible omissions.
CHAPTER XV.
MR. MASON’s PICTURE OF KENT AND SUSSEX.
IN pursuance of my promise, I am now going to attempt
the description of Mr. Mason’s celebrated picture of
Rent and Sussex. The representation of the locus in
quo at the time is, of course, accurate, and very many
of the portraits are ‘life figures.’ The picture of Alfred
Mynn is the only real portrait of him which does justice
252 The Game of Cricket.
to his magnificent ‘ presence that I ever saw. Amongst
others, old Lilly, Caldecourt, the umpire, Charles Taylor
at mid-off, and Hawkins at point are lifelike as regards
figure and position. So are Wenman and Fuller Pilch.
In fact, it is a very valuable picture, and for some reason
it is to be picked up now for little money. I expect
the copyright is nearly out, and that a large number of
German piracies are about ; so, younger England, keep
your eyes open for a copy, as you will have the por-
traits of a set of cricketers who loved and worshipped
the noble game for its own sake. With this preface,
let me request you to blow your noses, and don’t breathe
on the glass, and listen to me. Mind you are looking
towards the picture, and ‘right' and ‘left mean
‘right and “ left as you look, and every man’s ‘right °
arm is on the ‘left as you look at it, and vice versé. If
you don’t understand this, punch one another’s heads
to shake up your ideas, and then read it again. The
picture may be divided, as regards the group of spec-
tators, into the ‘right-hand group,” the “centre group,”
and the ‘left-hand group,” as you ſace the picture."
RIGHT-HAND GROUP.—Observe the figure in the chair.
William Ward, Esq., formerly M.P. for the City of
London. He was a tremendous hitter, and great sup-
porter of the game in London, Hampshire, and Kent,
and all over England, and took the chair at the first
meeting for restoring a Surrey eleven in 1845. He first
appeared at Lord’s in England v. Surrey, for England,
in 1810. When Lord, who held the lease of the present
Lord’s Ground, seemed to be “topping the officer’ over
the M.C.C., and there were fears of its falling into the
* Why does not some illustrated paper or publisher reproduce this
picture ?
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 253
builder’s hands, Mr. Ward asked him what he would
take for it, and Lord named the extravagant sum of
5,000l. ‘Give me a pen and I will,’ replied Mr. Ward,
and he wrote the cheque. Curiously enough it turned
out a good investment. Mr. Ward learnt his cricket
at Winchester, and had two sons there, who were in
the eleven, and played at Lord’s in the Public School
matches 1831 and 1834, and another son, the late Rev.
A. R. Ward (not a Wykehamist), was in the Cambridge
Eleven in 1853, and was till his death for some years
president of the Cambridge University Cricket Club.
Mr. W. Ward was believed to be one of the finest whist
and piquet players in England. His big score at
Lord’s of 278 was not beaten until Dr. W. G. topped
it about fifty years afterwards. Immediately behind
Mr. Ward’s chair, next to margin of picture, William
Bolland, Esq., author of “Bolland’s Cricket Notes,’ and
inaugurator, secretary of, and constantly played with the
I Zingari Club, which played its first match in 1845.
The I Z. were first enrolled at Canterbury from the
ranks of the old stagers. Next to Mr. Ward, on his
right shoulder, speaking to him, Lord Charles Russell,
formerly Serjeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons,
now one of the oldest members of the M.C.C., for which
club he often played; still a constant spectator at Lord’s
and the Oval.
In the white hat, right-hand side, three from margin,
the late Mr. William Dennison, the pioneer of cricket
reporting in the London daily papers; was not much
of a cricketer, and fancied he could bowl slow round-
arm, and bowled once for the Gentlemen of England
against the Gentlemen of Kent at Lord’s, and, oddly
enough, bowled Felix for a ‘duck’; but the going in to
254 The Game of Cricket.
his bowling was one of the dreams of the past, which
is really “too, too delightful.” He wrote a very good
record, ‘Cricketers of My Time’—now very rare and
very useful—and also one or two cricket annuals. He
took an active part with his pen, and with “bustling
about in getting the Surrey County Club restored, was
very good-natured, and could stand a joke, as on one
occasion when, after a cricket supper, the guests “met
Vauxhall Gardens on the way home, and as Mr. D., who
wore a beautifully-oiled wig and a broad-brimmed hat,
and an imperial on his chin, was ‘gyrating' elegantly
on the fantastic toe on the illuminated platform—with
some accomplished lady no doubt—the late Mr. C–—s
H—e, who died very suddenly, valde deflendus, re-
moved Mr. Dennison’s wig and hat with the point of
his umbrella to the top of a chandelier, in which both
perished ; leaving the waltzer’s head like a billiard-
ball. The practical joker, with whom one could never
be angry, made amends by providing an elegant curly
‘jasey' and a new hat next day, which cost over seven
guineas, so he paid for his joke. There was fun in
those days
The centre figure of the same group, with bat in
hand, is Alfred Mynn, “The lion of Kent.” He is
leaning on the shoulder of his brother Walter; and
immediately behind Walter Mynn, the shorter figure
is C. Gustavus Whittaker, Esq. Alfred Mynn stood all
6 ft. 1 in., and his trained weight at thirty years of age
was 17 St. He was an immensely powerful man, never
beaten at single wicket, a terrific round-arm bowler,
with his arm straight out level with the shoulder, a
very fair bat, very active, and possibly one of the most
good-tempered and good-natured men in the world. The
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 255
people in Kent adored “our Alfred.’ Walter Mynn, his
elder brother, was his long-stop in the Kent Eleven—
no sinecure on a rough ground, or any ground. He
was a cramped player, but with great nerve, and a
good sticker. Fuller Pilch relied much on him and
William Hillyer, the Kent bowler, also a clumsy bat,
to put in on an emergency, when a few runs were
wanted or a wicket kept up till time. The Mynn
family, who were celebrated for the stalwart form and
courage of the men, and for the beauty of the women-
folk, settled in Kent three centuries ago as representa-
tives of the grand Kentish yeomen. The men were
all sportsmen : Walter was a very good shot—so was
Alfred, but not so good. Mr. Whittaker’s family were
great supporters of the game and of all sport—Mr.
Whittaker senior was celebrated for game-cocks—and
Mr. C. G. Whittaker used to play for Kent, also at
Lord’s for Cambridge University, and once or twice in
Gentlemen v. Players. The extreme left-hand figure of
the right group, next to recumbent figure—H. M. Cur-
teis, Esq., a good sportsman, sometime M.P., also
M.F.H., for East Sussex.
Immediately on Alfred Mynn’s left arm, with a
walking-stick in hand, the Earl of Winterton, a good
patron at M.C.C., and also in his own county, formerly
president of M.C.C. Next to him, with his hand in his
coat pocket, the Hon. Edward Grimston, elder brother
of the late Hon. R. Grimston. Mr. Edward Grimston
was at Harrow and Cambridge, and played much for
M.C.C. and in the Gentlemen’s Eleven—a very fine bat
and good cricketer, but entered the Church and dis-
continued public cricket. Between these two, looking
out of the picture, Mr. Charles Harene, one of the early
256 The Game of Cricket.
round-arm bowlers; played for Harrow in 1826, and
afterwards for Kent for some years.
CENTRE GROUP.—Prominent centre figure, with
broad-brimmed hat, Tom Napper, Esq.-‘Squire Napper”
—a good sportsman of the old school, and father of
Messrs. Edwin and William Napper, who both played for
their county—the former off and on for twenty years—-
and at Lord’s. Both left-handed batsmen, who bowled
right-arm round. Mr. Edwin is long-slip in the picture;
Mr. William is not in the picture. Both gentlemen
are alive and well, and constantly to be seen at Sussex
matches, Lord’s, and the Oval.
Immediately behind Squire Napper, in cricket dress,
the late J. Wisden, the Little Wonder (Sussex), stood
5 ft. 4; in., and only weighed 7 st. when he commenced
—a splendid bowler and cricketer generally—died a
year or two since, and his staff who carry on the busi-
ness say they never had a kinder or more generous
master. His appearance amongst the grouped cricketers
is an anachronism, as his career commenced when that
of most of the cricketers represented in Mr. Mason’s
picture were about to retire. -
The figure of a man sitting down, whose head is
against Wisden’s waistcoat, is Tom Napper, jun., another
son of Squire Napper, a great supporter of the game in
Dorking, Surrey, where he lived, and the earliest patron
of Harry Jupp. It was Mr. (Dr.) Tom Napper who
came with Mr. Burrup to see Jupp play against Epsom
on Brockham Green, as recorded in a former chapter.
Two off Squire Napper’s right arm, the late Mr. J. H.
Darke, lessee of TLord’s for many years. -
LEFT-HAND GROUP. — Extreme right-hand figure
nearest to mid-off (in the field), showing a watch chain,
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 257
Sir Frederick Bathurst, a very powerful man, a standing
dish at Lord’s. In the Guards, and best bowler in the
army, played in Gentlemen and Players for a period
extending over twenty years, and in many of the M.C.C.
grand matches, and also in Hants and Wilts, where he
promoted cricket. A very quick round-arm bowler,
low delivery, about height of hip, took a long run
before delivery, and sent the ball in with full force of
swing and shoulder; hard hitter, no defence. In 1853,
when Gentlemen beat Players, after many years’ defeat,
he and Mr. Kempson bowled all through the match,
and were never changed. The picture does not give an
accurate idea of his grand, powerful frame. He was
not quite so large in frame, but as powerful a man as
Alfred Mynn. Next to Sir Frederick, hiding Sir F.’s
right shoulder, Mr. Roger Kynaston, Hon. Sec. to
M.C.C. for many years, afterwards treasurer, played in
a great many matches for M.C.C. at T.Ord’s, long-stopped
a great deal, and very useful member, but not quite in
the front rank of amateurs. Mr. Kynaston was a grand
‘ buffo' singer. Two from Mr. Kynaston, immediately
behind the figure with bat, in white hat and spectacles,
the Earl Ducie, a good sportsman, especially as sup-
porter of cricket; took Martingell, the bowler, into
Gloucestershire, with a view to promote cricket there,
long before the days of the Grace Brothers. Centre
figure with bat, Mr. N. Felix (Nicholas Wanostrocht)—
the king of men—schoolmaster at Blackheath, cricketer,
scholar, linguist, singer, musician, artist, and the cheeri-
est man who ever went into a cricket field. Mr. Felix
was a pioneer in bringing out (as was before stated) the
catapulta, and also invented tubular gloves—was a
splendid point and grand bat, ‘cut in the slips wonder-
S
258 The Game of Cricket.
fully.” Born in Surrey, though playing in Kent, where
he taught hundreds of young fellows cricket, he was
claimed for Surrey for birth when they played against
Rent; as was Martingell. Surrey playing Kent without
those two and having them on her side was like fighting
a lion with his teeth and claws drawn and his eyes put
out. * Felix on the Bat,’ which has been much pirated,
is one of the best books, practically and theoretically,
ever written on cricket. Standing immediately behind
Felix’s right shoulder is the Earl of Bessborough, better
known as the Hon. F. Ponsonby, Harrow, Cambridge,
Gentlemen of England, and All England Elevens, and for
last forty-two years vice-president of the Surrey County
Club, and constant amateur coach of the Harrow Eleven
nearly all his cricket life, and promoter of cricket at
his seat in Ireland : was a good cricketer and manager
of a match, and a conscientious supporter of the game.
He was a kind of twin brother of the late Hon. Robert
Grimston, as they were always together, and were
generally known by the ‘ring' on a cricket-ground
as “Bob Grimston ’ and “Fred Ponsonby.” Third
figure from Lord Bessborough, and third from the
margin of the picture, in white shirt, there is a face
looking through the crowd—William Hillyer, one of
the very best, bar none, who ever took a ball in hand
(Kent); shuffled up to the bowling crease like a waiter
carrying a lot of hot plates and anxious to set them
down : round-arm bowler, a little below the shoulder,
and ‘death on the wicket.’ Mud, wet, hard ground,
or billiard-table ground made no odds to him. He had
a break from off to on when bowling over the wicket,
but his speciality was that the ball pitched on the leg-
side and cut across. His pace was medium-quick. Has
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 259
bowled both for the fast bowlers of England and the
slow. A magnificent short-slip, obstinate, clumsy sticker
with the bat. A splendid shot at game or at the trap.
|Bxtreme left-hand figure, bottom row, next margin
of picture, F. P. Fenner, of Cambridge, kept “Fenner’s
Ground there, now alive and well, and landlord of
White Lion Hotel, Bath; first-rate all-round cricketer,
one of the best Eleven in England, very superior and
well-educated, and much respected by all classes, espe-
cially Cambridge men, hundreds of whom were his
pupils. Immediately behind Hillyer’s hat, third from
margin of picture, William Martingell–Fuller Pilch’s
pupil—Surrey born, brought out in and played for
Kent for some few years, though he had played for
Surrey as a boy; very good all-round cricketer; coached
half the great schools in England, now alive and well.
Next W. Martingell, in broad-brimmed hat, open shirt
collar, full face, William Dorrinton, Kent; splendid
longstop, afterwards wicket-keeper when Wenman re-
tired, and became a very good bat; was very popular
at Lord’s.
Next to Dorrinton, and next margin of picture and
immediately behind Fenner, Bartholomew Good (Notts),
left-handed bat and bowler; good bowler, hard hitter,
especially to leg; played for Notts, and practically won
the first return match between Notts and Sussex at
Nottingham in 1835, being last man in : this was the
first year Notts played Sussex: also played for M.C.C.
very much as umpire. He was engaged there for years
afterwards. Behind B. Good, last top figure of left-
hand group, next margin, Tom Sewell, of Mitcham,
Surrey—‘ busy Tom —now alive and well at Seven-
oaks, though nearer eighty than seventy; played for
S 2
260 The Game of Cricket.
Surrey, and much at Lord’s, where he was for a great
part of his career—a useful cricketer at any time. Two
from margin next Sewell, with a curl on each side
under his hat, and looking as if he had eaten live birds
for breakfast, Tom Adams, of Kent—now alive and
well at Gravesend, well over the seventies; bright as a
‘ first-class' lark, upright as a dart, sound as a roach;
was a very good man on his side—good bowler, with a
hurried run to crease, rather low delivery ; very hard
hitter; one of the best long-fields ever seen ; a wonder-
ful shot at a wicket, and good single-wicket player; a
first-rate game shot, and at the trap ; and very clever
formerly with his ‘ bunch of fives,” but never quarrel-
some : was a great deal at Lord’s, and also at South-
ampton for awhile, and may be summed up as a thorough
good English cricketer.
[Now, my Christian friends, I have done with the
spectators in the picture, and two minutes are usually
allowed for polishing the glasses, during which it is the
showman’s privilege to “walk round ’ and shake hands
with any lady or gentleman who wishes to drop a trifle
into his cap before exhibiting the cricketers in the field.]
IN THE FIELD. —Mid-off, Charles George Taylor,
Esq., Eton, Cambridge, Sussex, Gentlemen of England,
and All-England Elevens. One of the most brilliant all-
round amateurs of his own or any day—beautiful bat,
good medium bowler (could bowl break-backs over the
wicket), splendid field, with thorough knowledge of the
game; used, with Box, the wicket-keeper, to manage
Sussex Eleven. He must be put one below ‘the
Doctor,” and bracketed with such men as Mr. W. E.
Walker, Mr. A. G. Steel—and those who were men
enough for any player at any point, man to man. He
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 261
was also a fine tennis and billiard player; was open to
play any man in England at cricket, tennis, and bil-
liards. Fuller Pilch said his bowling was “all over the
shop, like a flea in a bed.” Look at old Lillywhite
bowling at the wicket nearest us. He was a bricklayer,
and for all the world he was like a man carrying a brick
just going to lay it, and when he reached the crease he
turned his arm over, the height of his shoulder, and
laid the brick. He was a spendid bowler; he seemed
just to pitch the ball up, and it sprang up off the
ground like lightning, and those who caught it ‘hot ”
on the knuckles before cricket-gloves were used said
the ball seemed to grind their flesh; was an obsti-
nate, clumsy bat, but could keep his wicket up if
wanted. He is believed to have bowled one wide ball
in his career. In 1851–1852, when he gave up public
cricket, astat. fifty-nine, he went to Winchester and
trained the boys, and sent up two splendid elevens, who
beat Eton and Harrow two years running, after having
been defeated by both Eton and Harrow for five succes-
sive years. Although not in the picture, I must
mention his sons. His son John was a splendid
cricketer, and Jem, with the one eye (who died at
Cheltenham, where he trained the boys), cousin of James
Lillywhite of to-day, was also a good cricketer. In
1851, when the old man first trained the Winchester
Eleven, his son Jem trained Westminster, which had a
splendid eleven that year, including Mr. Charlton Lane,
afterwards one of the best gentlemen players in Eng-
land; Walter Fellows (brother of Harvey Fellows), who
afterwards bowled in Gentlemen and Players; F. Oliver,
many years captain of the Wimbledon Club, and one
of the best captains in England; also De Lacey and
262 The Game of Cricket.
Armistead—both very good players. I saw West-
minster in 1851 go in against Marylebone, with Jemmy
Dean bowling, to get 170, in order to tie the first
innings of the Marylebone Club, and they got 201—
the best stern-chase I ever saw of a school against a
strong eleven. Nine of the boys got double figures,
varying from 11 to 33, by real good play. John Lilly-
white this year was training Rugby. No family of
professionals ever did more for cricket. The latter’s
brother, Frederick, got up the ‘Scores and Biographies,”
with the aid of not a few, but F. Lillywhite knew more
about the Prize Ring (not as a pug.) than cricket.
He could ‘use his dukes’ though, and gave a man, who
went for him with a bowie-knife in a bowling alley in
America, such a thrashing that he was utterly unre-
cognisable by his creditors even. Old William Lilly-
white’s family deserve a special notice. The umpire
at Lillywhite's end, “Honest Will Caldecourt,’ as he
was always justly called, who passed his life almost at
Lord’s, beginning as a boy, a good old-fashioned
bowler and cricketer, and much respected by all—in
his later days a fearless and honest umpire. Umpire
at batsman’s end, John Bayley, of Mitcham, Surrey,
came out at Lord’s in 1820, and was retained at Lord’s,
and served the Marylebone Club until superannuated;
was also a most trusted umpire, good slow round-arm
bowler, formerly underhand, afterwards slow round,
and useful cricketer; was also a good shot and fisher-
man. He was a grateful old boy, too, as in his last
moments, a few hours before he died, he sent for me,
and begged me to convey his thanks to the M.C.C. for
the pension which made his latter days comfortable.
Batsman at Lillywhite’s end, E. G. Wenman (Kent),
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 263
left-handed, batted right, ambidextrous as wicket-
keeper, at which post he was most excellent; used to
keep to the terrific bowling of Alfred Mynn without
gloves or pads until they were introduced in 1841.
The fairest cricketer who ever lived—hardly ever got
‘No’ for a stump or catch at wicket, because he never
asked unless he thought the man was out—a splendid
bat, back player, and great at a late ‘cut.” When the
Eighteen Veterans played against Eleven of England
at the Oval he batted very well, cutting Jackson’s
bowling with great ease. Mid-on—George Picknell,
Sussex farmer, hard hitter, good round-arm bowler,
good at single wicket. Short-leg, G. Barton, Esq., a
good amateur, but I have no record of him, although I
understand he was a good amateur.
Fuller Pilch, of Norfolk, adopted Kent as his
county in 1835, and lived and died there in 1870, is
the batsman receiving the ball—the greatest batsman
and cricketer who ever stood on two legs, barring Dr.
W. G. Observe, the bowler sees all three stumps.
Though Pilch lived into the days of pads, he never used
them in any way for defence. He was a splendid manager
of a match, and very fine field; used to pitch the ball
up under-hand, never threw over-hand, from mid-off,
which was his general watch; could bowl good medium
slows, but seldom, if ever, bowled for Kent. I knew
him all his life, from 1845 till his death in 1870.
According to modern laws and practice of to-day many
batsmen now have practically about four or five innings
to Pilch's one innings. He always was ready in every
innings to give any one, once only, a sovereign and
receive back a shilling a run. I have seen him do this
often.
264 The Game of Cricket.
Point, Hawkins, one of the best of any day at
point–portrait and attitude is admirable; a barber,
remarkable for his curls. Fuller Pilch used to say that
he must have changed heads with a poodle dog (Old
Fuller was very quaint); took guard two inches from
his wicket, then took a step or two forward, and threw
his bat right back behind his right shoulder, and seemed
to chop down on a ball. The most extraordinary thing
was he was in time pretty generally for a shooter; and
if he did get hold of an off-ball fairly, it was pretty
sharp work for the field, for he hit her with the full
sweep of his arms and shoulders. Cover-point, Ham-
mond, a hard hitter, but not a very grand field; threw
well. Short slip, Jemmy Dean, the Sussex Ploughboy
—as awkwardly built a “cove’ as would be often seen—
a wonderful long-stop, and used to stop his partner’s
bowling when his own over was finished. Capital
bowler ; used to be called Dean Swift, but afterwards
modified his style to medium quick; an ugly bat, but
could get a lot of runs; was many years at Lord’s, and
much liked, for he was a character and popular with
all. Not much beholden to coaches or railways, for if
a ground was within twelve miles across country he
would put his bat handle through the handles of his
bag, and do it on ‘shanks’s pony.” He was a cricketer
‘ all up his back,” as the roughs say.
Long-slip, Mr. Edwin Napper (mentioned above).
Tong-stop, Bushby. Did not play very many Sus-
sex matches; hard hitter and good long-stop.
Last, but not least, wicket-keeper, Thomas Box, a
very handsome man until his nose was smashed keeping
wicket at Lord’s in 1840 or 1841; a beautiful wicket-
keeper and good bat, out well to the off; played for
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 265
many years for Sussex, at Lord’s for England against
Rent, and constantly retained as ‘given man.” Box
was not quite equal to Wenman, who stood 6 feet high,
and had a longer reach, and was also the better bat.
Five of the Kent eleven—the two Mynns, Pilch, Wen-
man, and Dorrinton—all were 6-foot men or over. The
peculiarity of the play of all the above, my Christian
friends, was that they went straight to the wicket, took
their guard, and went to work without waste of time,
and played with their bats and not with their pads, and
cared only for the success of their side. The world did
not go well with Box in his latter days, nor with
Willsher, the Kent bowler (not in the picture). I often
used to see them at Prince’s, when they were both
engaged on the ground in keeping it in order, and had
many a long chat with them. Box dropped down
dead, during a match there, in the act of altering the
telegraph. Willsher died last year. He was one of
nature’s gentlemen, and as much respected by all
classes as any man in England.
Some one yet has to write the history of cricket from
1850 till 1878, when division of gate-money commenced,
and the game has too often changed from a “grand
national sport ’ to a ‘prosperous going concern.” An
impartial account of the rise of Yorkshire, Cambridge-
shire, Lancashire, Surrey, Gloucestershire, and other
good counties, especially if such things as ‘’Varsity,”
* county form,’ ‘averages,’ and ‘records' were omitted,
and the sterling value of our cricketers as cricketers was
accurately set forth, would be invaluable. It must be
written from actual knowledge—not from Lillywhite's
scores, and it must be the work of some younger man
than myself; he should be one of those who entered
266 The Game of Cricket.
on his cricket life in the George Parr and Wisden era,
and who knew and saw the men he writes about from
that era down to the day of publication of the account,
and who should know what each of them was worth as
a ‘man for the good of his side.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE THREE BRAS OF CRICKET.
THERE are but three steps from the inauguration of
the Marylebone Club in 1787 down to to-day. Beldham
began with the M.C.C. in the days of wickets 22 in.
high by 6 in. wide, lived into and played during the
days of the quick underhand bowling of Osbaldeston,
Brown (of Brighton), and others; saw the wickets
increased to present size, 27 in. by 8 in., and retired
in 1821 with a score of 23 not out, after thirty-four
years' service, having been the given man throughout
a long part of his career. He was the champion of the
straight bat school. He died in 1862, aetat. ninety-six,
having lived fifty-four years during George III.’s reign,
and twenty-six years of her present Majesty. Beldham
overlapped Pilch, who came out in 1820, by one season.
Lord Frederick Beauclerk overlapped Pilch by seven
seasons, so that they were in the same school, and
learnt from the same grammar, as they played in the
same matches. Pilch learned forward play from
Fennex, one of the Old Hambledon men, who died in
1834. Pilch saw the rise of round-hand bowling in
1828, and was pioneer of the grand forward style, and
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 267
taught all the world the art of ‘placing’ the ball in front
of the crease before it could break on the wicket and
become unmanageable. Pilch retired in 1854. He
was given man during a long part of his career.
The eldest of the Walker Brothers, the late Mr. John
Walker, played for Cambridge University when twenty
years of age in 1846, and as he belonged to the old
Clapton Club, one of the best of the London suburban,
doubtless saw Pilch during his own boyhood, and played
in matches with him at Lord’s and elsewhere, until
Pilch’s retirement in 1854; and the youngest of the
brothers, Mr. I. D. Walker, retired from county play
two years since. The cricket era of the seven brothers
extends over thirty-eight years; four of them—Mr. J.
Walker and his brothers—W. E., I. D., and R. D.—hav-
ing taken part in Gentlemen and Players over and over
again, and in the greatest contests in England, to say
nothing of their having been staunch supporters.
These are the three steps—two players, Beldham and
Pilch, and one family of brothers, who amongst them
have almost covered a century of cricket. Families have
had much to do with preserving the traditions of the
game. The Blighs have covered nearly a century; the
Lyttelton brothers nearly thirty years, and still going
on; the Graces not quite so long; the Lubbocks survived
for a long time. One of the Dafts is likely to be “the last
man,’ if the old cock bird breaks out again with a score
of between 200 and 300, as he did last year. The name
of Daft stands out as boldly as that of Fuller Pilch.
Tom Emmett has done pretty near or quite his quarter
of a century; Shaw is going on for his quarter of a
century. The Lillywhite family covered a large trail
of time. Men of the above class of all ranks are those
268 The Game of Cricket.
who have preserved the game, and it is time for the
M.C.C. to provide that men of succeeding generations
do not kill it as a game. The game has been handed
down by tradition ; and quickness of hand and eye,
pluck and courage, the cardinal virtues which boys
acquired in the old homes of the game, have been often
hereditary.
Mr. W. W. Read, who has performed so success-
fully, learnt all he knew on the village greens of Surrey.
I saw him when he was a boy under fifteen go in first
against very good professional bowling on Mitcham
Green, and come out last with 45 to his name without
a mistake, not having given a single chance till the last
ball of the innings, which he hit into cover-point’s
hands. The match was called Earlswood v. Mitcham.
It was practically Reigate and Mitcham, and both sides
were very strong. I was standing point all the innings
and saw him play every ball, and if he lives to a hundred
he will never play better than he did that day. Then
there were no boundary hits, which did not exist on
any green in Surrey, barring the tent hits. Why, in
1862 I was playing on Esher Common, and the ball
went under a gipsy's cart. Tableau–ball in the mouth
of a fierce unmannerly brindled bull-dog in the tant-
arums—myself having to field it. What could I do?
There was no committee sitting which I could have
consulted. If there had been they might pass reso-
lutions, but they would not have tackled the dog.
Happy thought, give him my best flannel cap—did so.
Dog seized it greedily, and placed ball between his
paws. No better off. Another happy thought ! Dog’s
stern protruded behind cart; I had cricket shoes on ;
attack dog in rear; did so with spiked sole : dog
Rights and Wrongs, &c. 269
sprang round to lick the place and make it well; cap.
and ball recovered; ball thrown up. Another happy
thought ! I guess that dog did not sit down, at any
rate on the starboard side of his stern, to his evening
bone with his customary glee and relish.
Some of the disputants on the question of a remedy
for the bad decisions as regards l.b.w.. suggested that,
instead of crease in front of popping crease, any ball,
pitch where it might, if stopped by leg, should put
the player out 1.b.w.. I don’t think many will agree
with them. If the batsman is required to defend
his wicket with his bat only against any ball which
pitches one foot off the line between wicket and
wicket of outer and inner stumps respectively, that
will be practically making him do what his forefathers
did. There is no reason practically against the parallel
lines 2 ft. 8 in. apart, and 1 ft. Outside inner and outer
stump respectively, being drawn from bowling crease to
bowling crease. The whitening must be mixed with
something which will prevent the white coming off on
the ball. .
Now behold me in a white sheet and a taper in
my hand and pipe in my mouth doing penance in the
centre of the ground at Lord’s. I have unintentionally
robbed a worthy man of credit due to him. This is the
first opportunity I have of correcting in print a statement
which I made in ignorance elsewhere, namely, “that the
admirable management of the turf at Lord’s is due to
Tom Hearne.” I was in error. Ever since 1874 Mr.
Percy Pearce has had the management of the turf by
special order of M.C.C. Long may he continue to do
so. If the Bible-Revision Commissioners sit again to
revise my old grandmother’s Bible [I never have, and
270 The Game of Cricket.
never will read their new edition], let them remember
to bar the turf of Lord’s from the original creation of
the world, as since 1874 it was created by Mr. Pearce.
And now, brother cricketers amongst my readers,
good-bye. Let us shake hands if we don’t agree in all
things. I have hit straight from the shoulder—and I
"meant it. Cricket should be a game, and not a gate-
money trade. I alone am answerable for every word
I have written.
Cricket has grown entirely from the innate love of
it in good men and true. There is only one more sug-
gestion which I will venture to make, which is, that
most certainly ‘boundary byes’ ought to be abolished,
and the ball ought to be fetched home by the field, the
batsmen being entitled to run as many as they could.
This would compel captains to cover the boundary, and
not leave it open with the comforting assurance—
“We can only lose four runs.”
We are under deep obligations to the unselfish sup-
porters of the sport on village greens and U11 public
grounds, who have won for it the proud title of THE
NOBLE GAME OF CRICKET | Stet fortuna domits 1
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Public and Private Institutions in the Country.
I.
MODERN ENGLISH SPORTS:
THEIR USE AND THEIR ABUSE.
THE FIRST PORTION BEING THE HISTORY OF CRICKET.
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Sir Theodore Martin, K. C. B.
II.
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ILLUSTRATED BY
Customs, and the Story of its Progress derived from fifty
years’ experience in the Cricket Field.
III.
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FROM QUEEN ELIZABETH'S DAYS TILL THE PRESENT TIME.
IV.
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FROM THE TIME OF OLIVER CROMWELL TILL NOW.
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CONSISTING OF
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whether thick or thin as gauze, worn next the skin in warm
weather, become saturatcd with moisture, and thus form an
impermeable and air-tight covering, preventing that free tran-
gpiration of the skin go noooºſlary to oomfort n nd even to life.”
& CO., Sole Manufacturers,
83 FINSBURY PAVEMENT, LONDON, E.C.
The only Paper in the World solely devoted to Cricket.
Sixth Year, 1887. IPIEICE * > d - Monthly during Winter.
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EVERY THURSDAY MORNING, FROM APRIL 14th TO SEPTEMBER 22nd.
MONTHLY DURING WINTER.
Among the Contributors up to the present time have been:—THE AUTHOR OF ' CRICKET F.I.E.L.P.
HON. E. LYTTELTON, LORD HARRIS, THE EDITOR OF • JAMES LILLYWHITE'S CRICKETERS
ANNUAL, LORD CHARLEs RUSSELL, THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH, MR. F. GALE, AND OTHER
WELL-KNOWN WFITERS ON CRICKET.
Office: 41 ST. ANDREWS HILL, LONDON, E.C.
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