Cricket 1883

o c t . 2 5 ,1883. CRICKET; A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 419 A L A D IE S ’ CR ICK E T MATCH . This novel match was played last month, at Denton Park, Grantham. M r s . H. P. D ickenson ’ s S id e . Mrs. Lusk, b Hind .. 1 Miss Simmons, b F. Whaley ....................5 Miss Whaley, b H ind.. 5 Miss Wynne, b Hind .. 8 Miss Topps, ran out .. 0 E x t ia s ....................G Mrs. Dickenson, not out 2 Mrs. Osborn, b Hind .. 1 Miss Robinson, runout 2 Miss Garton, run out .. 0 Miss Rear, c M. Travis, b J. T ravis....................0 Mrs. Anthony, run out.. 1 Miss F. Hind, run out .. 3 Miss Cheshire, run out.. 6 Total Miss T ravis ’ s S ide . Miss M. Travis, bDicken- son..................................... 2 Miss S. Travis, run out 2 Miss Needham, bDicken- son..................................... 0 Miss F.Hind,bDicken3on 0 Miss Kingston, retired 7 Miss Whaley, run ou t.. 0 Miss Fussey, run out . . 1 MissElphie, lbw, bHind 9 Miss M'Auslin, not out 17 MissF.Whaley, run out 0 Miss Smith,bDickenson 0 Miss Taft, b Whaley .. 1 Miss Preston, not out 0 E x t r a s ....................2 Total .. 41 MR. A. G. TRIBE’S XI v. MR F. H. FAWCETT’S XI. Played at BJackheath on Sept. 22, and resulted in an easy win for Mr. F. H. Faw­ cett’s XI in a single innings by 59 runs. Messrs. Fawcett and Lyle were very effective with the ball. M r . T ribe ’ s XI. First Innings. Second Innings. W,E. Chuckenbutty, run out 0 b J, V, Lyle.................... o A, G, Tribe, b J, V. Lyle .. 0 1b w, b Fawcett.. .. 0 U, D. Tripp, c Solbc, b J. V , c F. K. Kendall, b J. Lyle ......................................3 V. L y l e .........................9 A. L, Herbert,b Fawcett .. 2b F a w cett..................... 1 P. Ellis, e Solbe 1) Fawcett.. 0 b F aw cett.........8 G. Clarke, b J, Y. Lyle.. .. 2 b F a w c ett.....................0 It. T, Maynard, b J, V, Lyle 4b F aw cott......................1 P. A. S Stern, not out .. 0not ont..............................4 L b ..................................... 1 B 1, n b 1 .. .. 2 Total.............................12 Total . . . . 2 ) J. Dundas, T. Campbell, aud G, Manifold did not bat. M r . F awcett ’ s XI. F. M. Marzials,st Tripp, C E. Corthorn, b Tribe 17 b Tribe............................ 1 N. 1*\ Kendall, not out 2 A, II Saveli, c sub., b F. Iv Kendall, b ' r:be 7 T r ib e ............................ IS A. B, Youlle, b Tribe .. (l H. B, Youlle, b Tribe .. G P. Lyle, b Tribe 0 F. H. Fawcett, c Tribe, B 2, lb 1, w 1, n l 4 8 b T rip p ............................ 10 __ •*. V. Lvle, 1 b w, b Tripp 13 Total . . .. 91 U. D. S.dbe, c M iynard, b Tripp 11 T h e Northbrook Club will bold its- Smoking Concei t at the Cannon Street Hotel, on Friday, November 16. O ct . 16, at Richmond, Surrey, the wife of J- S. Udal, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at- Liw, of a son. L ondon and S uburban A ssociation .— A general meeting of the secretaries of clubs of 4 >eabove Association, will be held at Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street, on Tuesday, November 6 , ! t 8 p.m., when the following will take place:— presentation of cups, election of officers, con- ■Heration of rules, arrangement of matches. T h e A u stralian s in E n qland . —A fuil and Complete account of the Third Australian beam’s Visit to England, with portrait and h'ography of each member, together with details '"f all matches, besides other information,will be '"‘Qfc post free, from Cricket Press, 17, Pater­ noster Square, London, E.C., for seven stamps. ‘ he Sporting Life says:—“ The portraits are ’'Xcellmit, and the biographies most complete, 'vhilst the details of matches, though brief e|nbrace every salient feature in each.” C ric k e t. —A song written and composed by 3 H. Smith ‘‘I dedicated to A. N. Hornby, Esq. “ It will be welcomed sartily by ail lovers of the national British game,” — Era’ °st free, 18 stamps of author, 22, Clifton-street Wolver- 'u,ipton.— a d v t. TH E D E V E L O PM E N T OF CR ICKET . B y L obd H a e e is . (Reprinted by special permission from National Review of September.) How great has been the revolution of public opinion in regard to cricket since the time when the game first began to attract general attention, may be seen from the expressions of a writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine of September, 1743, who classes cricket with skittles:— I can’t say but it would shock me a little if I saw honest Crispin tipping against a member of either House of P 1. Noblemen, gentlemen, and clergymen have cer­ tainly a right to divert themselves in what way they think fit, nor do I dispute their piivilege of making butchers, cobblers, or tinkers their companions, provided they are qualified to keep them company. But I very much doubt whether they have any right to invite thousands of people to be spectators of their agility at the expense of their duty and honesty. Perhaps, after all, the writer was a true lover of the game, and may have been only protesting against people collecting together for the pur­ pose of wagering, rather than blaming them for taking part in so simple an amusement. If so, who will say he was wrong, who will not rather thank him for helping to hand down the game to us in its present state, unique in this pot- hunting age; for to the credit of cricket be it said that at the present time there arc not, so far as I know, a dozen challenge cups in England. Dame Cricket uses no meretricious attractions ; the only prize she gives is the honour of success. It was not always so. We must not forget that cricket bas passed through the cleansing fires, for, as the author of “ The Cricket Field” has told us, time was when the “ legs ” used to sit under the pavilion at Lord's and bet, and when players were bribed to lose, until, so says Mr. Pycroft, one day, in a single-wicket match where both players had been bought, the one would not try to bowl straight, nor the other to get a run. Whether such a travesty was a death­ blow to gambling, or the great individual merits of the game gradually suppressed this, I do not know; but certainly at the present time it would be difficult to win or lose a large sum of money on the majority of the best matches played during the year in England , and as for buying a man not to play his best, the buyer would indeed have to take care of himself, I think, when he made the proposal. True, from across the water last year came rumours of such buying and selling; but rumour is many-tongued, and when once the thing is proved of an English profes­ sional, then I, for one will believe it, and not before. Large bets could be made in Australia on cricket matches when I wras there in ’78, but doubtless the game was but passing through that stage of its existence which it has survived in England, and will certainly survive in those colonies. Cricketers here have come to the con­ clusion arrived at by a Court of Law, in 1711, in a trial arising out of a wager laid on a cricket match: “ it is, to be sure, a manly game, and not bad in itself, but it is the ill-use that is made of it by betting above £10 on it that is bad.” The mention of cricket more than 170 years ago leads to the question, “ Whence did cricket arise?” It is a remarkable thing that our know­ ledge of so intricate a game should begin when it was fully developed, and that the incipient stages of its growth cannot be traced. Strutt thinks its parent was club-ball or stool-ball, but the latter was certainly played at the same time as cricket, for early in the 17 th century the following passage occurs in the biography of the Rev. Thomas Wilson: “ Maidstone was formerly a very prophane town, insomuch that I have seen morrice - dancing, cudgell - playing, stool ball , crickets,and many other sports openly and publicly on the Lord’s Day.” I lean to the belief, despite absence of proof, that cricket was played very much in its present form many years before the action referred to above arose out of a wager laid on a Kent and England match in 1711, and tha it only wanted its historian because it was pro­ bably confined to the lower classes. In the 18th century, however, it is introduced to us, as I said, full-fledged; for besides a painting of the game as played then, now to be seen with others of almost equal interest in the pavilion at ‘•Lord’s,” we have the poet James Love’s apostrophe to cricket, written in 1746 ; for two or three lines of which there is room here. Hail, cricket, hail! thou manly British game; First of all sport! be first aliko in fame. * * * * * * Thy pleasures, cricket, all his heart control, Thy eager transports dwell upon his soul; He weighs the well-turned bat’s experienced force, And guides the ball’s impetuous rapid course. * * * * * * 0 parent Britain! * * * ' * * * Nursed on thy plains, first cricket l«arnt to please, And taught tny sons to slight inglorious ease. The year 1774 is to be regarded as an epoch in the game ; for a committee of noblemen and gentlemen met that year at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall, and framed a code of laws, which in intent at least do not differ very materially, save in two notable instances, from those now in force. The first, relating to pitching the stumps, shows that the wicket at that time con­ sisted of only two stumps, twrenty-two inches long, instead of three, and of ono bail six inches in length, not two of four inches each. This was the transition stage between the original wicket of two stumps, one foot high, with a third, two feet long, laid across : and the wicket of three stumps, which was introduced about 1775, in a Kent and Hampshire match played on the Vine Ground at Sevenoaks—a ground that has already celebrated its centenary, and will last as long as cricket itself, having been given to the town of Sevenoaks by the third Duke of Dorset “ to be a cricket- ground for ever.” It was not until 1818 that the wicket now in use was fixed upon. The other notable difference between the laws of 1775 and those of the present day, is that a batsman might prevent a fieldsman catching him out so long as he remained between the creases: and still more extraoidinary, that the non-striker might hinder the bowler from catch­ ing the striker, so long as he used his body only and did not strike at the ball. This license must have caused some fine jostling matches, and re­ minds one of the old bumping races on the river at Eton, of which the tradition remains, where fouling was allowed, victory often falling in con­ sequence not to the swift but to the strong. I think we may take the next marked epoch in the game to be the introduction of round-arm bowling. Every cricketer has heard of old Jack Willes, who lived at Sutton Valence, and who kept a pack of hounds with which he used to hunt anything and everything, on the chalk hills forming the back-bone of Kent from Lydsing Street to Challock, until tradition says that w7hen he put on his green coat the hounds knew they were harriers for the nonce, and, when his pink, that they were fcx-hounds. We are told, too, how his daughter’s round-arm delivery of the ball gave him the first idea of the bowling that has since almost superseded the old lob-bowling. I do not say entirely superseded, for we still have a few lob-bowlers, and this year we saw a fair fast under-hand length bowler in the Eton and Harrow match. True, Sussex claims that Broadbridge discovered round-arm bowling ; but I think every­ one with a sptft’k of romance in his composition will prefer to believe that we are indebted to Miss Willes for the invention. Like most innovations, round-arm bowling only established itself after much opposition. Mr, G. Knight, of Godmersham in Kent, was, I be­ lieve, repeatedly no-balled at Lord’s, until at last, about 1830, he drew up a memorandum on the subject, stating his intention early the following year to propose an alteration in the rules, which would admit of the hand being raised as high as