Cricket 1890

II Together joined in cricket’s manly toil.”— Byron. No. 245. VOL. IX. Registered lor Transmission Abroad, THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1890. PRICE 2 d . CR ICKET v. GOLF. By H ora . c e H u t c h in s o n . (Reproduced from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine , by kind permission). S o m e while ago Mr. Andrew Lang contributed to “ Maga ” (June, 1889) a poem entitled “ The Old Love and the New.” Its last lines brusquely gave the due to the nature of the loves of his choice and his discarding :— “ The fact is, cricket’s been bowled out By that confounded golf I” Mr. Lang was not, however, speaking so much of any personal preference as of the tendency of the spirit of the age—of the English age, for Scotland has never experienced a gran e passion for the great game of England. She has but flirted with it, coyly—with a sense of its frivolity, and of her own weakness in allowing herself to be wooed. But none can say that England’s blossom­ ing affection for the game of the Scot is a mere passing fancy. It is too earnest and it is too universal. It sometimes displays itself under circumstances too unfavourable for any but the most real affection to bloom at all. Links is the name appropriated to soil of that sandy, sand-duney nature which most com­ monly results from the action of a river- mouth in forming an alluvial deposit, com­ bined with the action of sea waves and breezes in collecting drifts of sand. And links is the ground appropriate to the game of golf. Yet what do we find ? Not only is England girdled around her coasts with a chain of golf links (be the pun unobserved, as unintended!), but on every inland down and common, in every suburb of the great metropolis—at Blaok- heath, Wimbledon, Clapham, and Tooting Bee—yea, even, we hear, at “ ’Appy ’Amp- stead”—in fact, in every washing-green and cat-garden which affords room to swing the driver, is played as accurate an approach as circumstances will permit to the royal and ancient game of Scotland. Nor can the high-priests of the noble Eng­ lish game afford, as of old, to look with scorn upon the proselytes of the Northern goddess. They are too powerful abody—too numerous— have enlisted too many of the hierarchy of the English game—to be dealt with as in days when they were dismissed with scant cere­ mony as “ croqueters.” “ There’s no gentle­ man plays racquets now,” said the marker of the Woolwich R.A. racquet court, “ now that that d-----d Scotch croquet has come in.” In these days so rife with separation, may not we of England look on it as an emblem of lasting union with Scotland that her game has taken among us such kindly root ? Scot­ land has indeed no cause for complaint of the reception in the South of her national pro­ ducts. Her melodies are universal favourites (we have so safely buried the hatchet that we can even join her in Jacobite song); and if it is but with qualified ecstasy that we hear the strains of her national musical instrument skirling down the vast solitudes of West Kensington, she must at least concede, to our credit, that nothing so stirs English popular enthusiasm as a Highland regiment marching to “ the pipes.” Still less need she feel dis­ satisfaction with the Southern appreciation f her national beverage; and now, as a crowning, no less insinuating boon, she be­ tows on us her national game of golf. And having them here in our southern land, side by side, these two grand old games of two nations, may we not possibly learn some­ thing of the merits of each from their com­ parison? True, comparisons are odious, as we learn from many a copy-book; but it is no less true that almost all human knowledge proceeds by way of comparison. Qlt were m sl ading, however, to plastic youth, to hang on the pot-hooks of our copy-book the pp rently legitimate conclusion that all knowledge is consequently odious). Discussion of their rival claims by advo­ cates of too deep conviction is apt to terminate in fiasco. Between the Englishman who obs rves, with a smile, that he thinks he may po sibly take to golf in his old age, and the Scotsman who says that he understands crick t to be a very good game for boys, there is fixed so great a gulf as to leave no common ground on which they can meet for san argument. The utmost that each can be expected to concede to the other is that the games do not admit of comparison. On the broadest view this is true. We cannot say of the one game, absolutely, that it is better or worse than the other; but a very little con­ sider tion shows us that, with a certain nalysis of men, we can determine points in each game better or worse adapted to their several needs. In p rim isy let us start with this indisput­ able position—that there arrives a time in life whenjcricket becomes a toil and a humiliation, w ile golf, until the very grave, [remains a glory and a joy. It is not the batting that beats us, it is not the bowling : for what we may have lost in dash and vigour we may have well compensated in riper cunning. But no cunning will bring nearer the ball speeding over the “ carpet.” Just those four inches by which we find that our down-reaching- hand fails to touch the ground is enough to let the “ leather ” by—perhaps not to be arrested till the boundary. Each year increases by an inch the gap, till on a sad day we give it up with a melancholy soliloquy, “ The nearer the grave the farther the ground! ” But our caddie can still tee for us the golf- ball. If added years subtract yards from our length of driving, we do not thereby spoil matc s or fun—nay, rather, probably, in­ crease the fun of an opponent. As we go down the hill towards the last bunker, and have the Elysian fields in view, we form but one of a goodly company, our equals in de reasing skill. Here, then, from this standpoint, there is indeed no comparison. From forty-five years and forward—for though some be so strong t at they play up to the full half-century, yet is their cricket then but vanity and sorrow,— from this age onwards golf is tne only game. Again, let us consider: for the toiler at a city d sk, whom a stern necessity or a wife and family allow but a Saturday holiday in p re oxygen, which is the better game ? This man, let us say, is in full prime of life. But here a further distinction must be drawn. Th comparison holds not at all, save from him whom a one-day’s match suffices. He of the elite of the game, whose sphere is first- class matches—Lord’s, andthe County grounds —to this man the one day a-week of cricket appeals not at all. The length of three whole summ r days does not suffice him for the four innings. No man can play first-class cricket save he who can devote to it a very large portion of the summer of the year. Him, then, for the purpose of this phase of our comparison, we may set aside. How bout that humbler cricketer of the class which plays habitually two, often three, and m ybe four innings in a single day? A cricket-ground is commonly more accessible than a golf-links. Where cricket-grounds are measured by the hundred yards, golf-links are m asu ed by the miles; naturally it is easier o find space for crioket. Yet your cricket- ground once reached, accommodates but twenty-two; your golf-links, at a pinch, one hundred. Again, your cricket-match requires twenty-two; your golf-match scarcc more than yourself “ and a lassie.” You can always get your golf-match ; you can sometimes not get a place in your cricket-matoh—you can some­ times not get cricketers to fill your places. This also, however, we will set aside. You ve reached your cricket-ground—are your uncertainties at an end ? The weather ! A shower may keep you in the pavilion all the day: Golf you may play, not with great com­ fort, admittedly, in a snowstorm. Grant, however, the elements propitious, will your for un as a player likewise favour you ? Alas ! the round 0, or the double zero even— hideous “ spectacles ” to contemplate—is con