Cricket 1887

82 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. APRIL 1887. been really serious scholars. Scientific study has not bent itself to the question of the origin of cricket; and the weather is too warm, as Nimrod found “ the pace too good to inquire.” Certainly the Phseacians, described by Homer in his Odyssey , did not know cricket. Had they known it they would not have diverted their guests by empty exhibitions of their dexterity in holding catches. No; they would have pitched the stumps, and displayed their national address at cricket. Chapman, how­ ever, in his translations, shows that he imagines Homer to have known stool-ball, from whieh amusement I shall attempt to derive the origin of cricket. In truth, Homer only says that Nausicaa played at ball with her maidens, but Chapman puts it thus :— “ Nausicaa With other virgins did at stool-ball play, Their shoulder-reachinghead-tireslaying by, Nausicaa with her wrists of ivory, The liking stroke struck .’* Here “ the liking stroke” answers to our old “ trial ball,” which is an exploded insti­ tution. Chapman goes on, “ The queen now for the upstroke struck the ball,” a technicality of which the mean­ ing escapes us. But before con­ sidering stool- ballin particul ar, let us notice the various natural species in to which all sport with balls and bats differenti­ ates itself. First the players may return the ball to each _ other across jj, barrier, such as a net. H en ce com es tennis, and the “ tennis without chaces,’’ which the Spaniards found among the Aztecs, and bal­ loon , and lawn- tennis. Next, each side may en d ea vou r to drive the ball to a goal guarded by the opposite party. Hence come hockey, La Crosse , the lted Iudian game, the Persian tsigan (whence chicane ) and our polo. Again, the game may be to see which party will drive the ball into certain holes, or through certain hoops, in the smallest number of strokes. Hence comes the old Jeu de Malle, or Pell Mell, and hence come golf, and the modern form of pell mell—croquet. Again, the object may be to strike the ball to such a distance as will enable the player to traverse a given space before the ball can be returned by the other party. If the ball be thrown or bowled to the striker, this game develops into rounders, base-ball, or the old stool-ball. A stool (which could be carried about and pitched anywhere in a moment) took the place of our wickets. I have played cricket with a camp-stool for wicket, I am sorry to say, in the market-place of Zug; it was excellent sport till a tremendous slog over the bowler’s head went straight for the Bur­ gomaster’s windows. Again, if the ball be not thrown to the striker, but hit off the ground by himself, perhaps with the aid of some simple mechanism, we have the games of knur and spell; trap , bat , and ball , or, substituting for the ball a short piece of wood, sharpened at the ends, we have tip-cat. Every one has seen tip-cat played in the streets. The street-boys are constantly hit­ ting the cat. into the eye of the wayfaring man. Now, as far as we can ascertain, cricket seems to have been evolved out of stool-ball, and tip-cat, or as it was called, cat and dog. From stool-ball was borrowed the primitive wicket—a stool, or cricket —which (perhaps) gave its name to the pastime. From stool- ball, too, we have the custom of tossing or bowling the ball to the striker. From cat and dog we borrow that part of the game which consists in running between two fixed points while the ball (at cat and dog the cat, or piece of wood) is being fielded or returned, by the other side. Cat and dog is in one sense a classical game. Bunyan tells us that he was playing at it, and was just about to strike the cat , when he heard a supernatural voice bidding him forbear. I remember reading this passage in childhood, and fancying* that Bunyan was torturing a poor puss, and that his heart was suddenly strikes it changes places with the person who holds the other club, and as often as these positions are changed one is counted in the game by the two who hold the clubs, and are viewed as partners ” This is simply double wicket cricket, with holes in place of stumps, and a bit of wood for a ball. As every one kaows, there was a hole between the two primitive stumps at cricket, till the middle of the eighteenth century. The question rises, is cat and dog an economical Scotch debasement of cricket, or are the stumps and ball later improvements on the prehistorio cat and hole in the ground ? It may be argued either way. The shoeblack in Bavenshoe played fives with a brass button. But fives did not begin with the use of brass buttons, and I fancy balls are older (the Phteacians used them) than cats, and that cats were a rustic substitute for a better article. A ball and club appear in the often copied Bodleian MS. of 1344, quoted by Strutt. However we settle this question, it is certain that “ cat and dog,” and stool-ball, between them, have all the elements of cricket, except, perhaps, the “ catching out” o f p la y e r s . Stumping w'as certain to come in, for human nature, on the side of the cat- thiower, would rise up against the holder of the dog , when he ran in too far. As to the an­ tiquity of the ' name of cricket in application to agame,we know very little, and do not seem likely to learn more. The chief a r g u m e nt for the lateness of the game is the absence of re­ ferenced cricket in the lists of sports which, in old times, were THE ROYAL ACADEMY CLUB IN MARYLEBONE FIELDS. From a Picture by F. H a y m a n , R.A., belonging to the Marylebone Club , wrung by a sense of his own cruelty. But Bunyan was merely affected by a conscious­ ness of the wickedness of primitive cricket. It seems that in some districts, cat and dog wras less like knur and spell, or trap, bat, and ball, than I have supposed. The cat was not hit up and then knocked away by the player, as in tip-cat , but was thrown or bowled to him, as at cricket. Cat and dog , as played in Scotland of old, is thus described in Jamieson’s Dictionary : “ Three play at this game, who are provided with clubs; they cut out two holes each, a foot in diameter and seven inches in depth. The distance between them is twenty-six feet. One stands at each hole with a club; these clubs are called dogs. A piece of wood, called a cat, about four inches long, and one inch in diameter, is thrown from one hole to another by a third person. The object is to prevent the cat from getting into the hole. Every time that it enters the hole, he who stands at that hole loses the club, and he who threw the cat gets possession of the club. If the cat be struck, he who formally recom­ mended or pro­ hibited. In the fortieth year of E liz a b e t h a piece of ground at Guildfordwas claimed as pub­ lic property, be­ cause boys had always played cricket on it when it was not being used for bear-baiting. About 1680 it is recorded (by a Puritan) that Maidstone was “ formerly a very prophane town,’, where “ stool-ball, cricketts,” and other games were practised on the Lord’s] Day. Thus, at that early date, a distinction was already taken, even by a Puritan who was no sportsman, between cricket and stool-ball. Then we hear, I really don’t know on what evidence—but all the cricket books give the story—of “ crickitt ” played by the crews of English ships at Antioch about 1680. The annals of Warwick declare that a match was played there in 1715. Very early in the eighteenth century the Artillery Ground in Middlesex was a home of cricket, whence the sport migrated to the White Conduit Ground, the grandmother of the M.C.C. Pope, Gray, Walpole, are all familiar with cricket. Sir Horace Mann, Walpole’s friend, w^as a distinguished bat. Walpole con­ gratulates himself that, even in his boyhood, he can “ remember finer things ” than a game of cricket, or a battle with a bargee. The bargee would probably, like his successor in