Cricket 1894

70 (JEICKETs ' A WEEKLY BECORD La? THE O a ME. APRIL 19, 1894 If I don’t go in firat, And Bee if there’s anything worth picking up. He called unto Bishop Who that day shut up his shop , To go back to his goose when the battle was o er. And he said “ You’re a broth Of a boy, and your cloth Must not be disgraced by your deeds on the score. (Bishop being a tailor). “ Pickworth proved a sticker, And primed Dy his liquor On the lawn ihe bold bishop appeared qaite at ea?e And of praise not to rob’em, Cobb and he they did cob’em— And both kept the fieldsmen as lively as fieas. Though bonus and dives, How uncertain life is Mr. Goodrich displayed, when a straight one he missed ; And the backers of Cotton Were certainly not on The right horse—fcr Cotton was beat by the twist. Brothers Phillips and Eddowes Next enlivened the meadows But an inclement trimmer sent Eddowes away ; And Ambrose and Everard, Who oft are to sever hard, Were too keen for their runs to make many that day. (Eddowes was bowled by Clement. Am ­ brose Phillip?, afterwards DeLisle and mem­ ber for Leicestershire, and his brother Everard, V.C., killed at Delhi, were both run out). “ Messrs. White soon looked black, For the first was sent back, By a catch to the cover point’s portion that fe ll; And though ftlr. Dobell Won’c have much to show Bell,” He may boast that we couldn’t do citto to Do-bell. (i.e., carry bis bat out.) 1 They were counting their winnings For the Loughboro’ innings Made up a round hundred and twenty and tw o; But they weren’t yet in clover, For ere it was over Their opponents had yet to show what they con'd do. From the shades of the tent Two Coleorton men went. And the Beach and the willow proved no tad allies, But Goodrich soon strode in To catch Mr. Boden, And the beechwood soon after cut down by surprise. (Beach is W . Bramston Beacb, M.P. for Hampshire; Boden, Walter Boden, the Derbyshire secretary.) “ There was not much suspense on The ionings of Benson, But an Eden now entered, no Paradise lost, For the bowlers complained He was Eden regained When ia vain their appeal to his stumps they enforced. (Benson got a “ d u c k ;” Eden, an Oxford man, who played in the eleven 1850-51, was given “ not out ” on appeal. He got 32 ruus, and was stumped off Goodrich’s slows.) ‘ Dick Clement came next— And the field were perplexed, For his partner and he kept the bowlers alive, Till poor Richard was caught, And a ball pitching short Lured the busy bee Eden away from his hive. ^Richard Clement was in the Oxford eleven 1853, and his brother Reynald—tbe same initial—in the Cambridge eleven in 1854 !) Mr. Beaumont was sent Shortly back to the tent, And the Lockington squire then came on the fore; And as he grew bolder With his bat on his shoulder A tidy long story he told on the score. (J. B. Story, of Lockington, was a well- known Leicestershire cricketer of the hard­ hitting school.) Mr. Ethelston then it Was, came in with Bennett Whose hits, hard and high, promised well for the match. Right pluckily on ’em he Practised astronomy, Till his stargazing innings was stopped by a catch. With a drive aud a far on hit Came the young Buonet, While the cheers of Coleorton were greeting each run. And on poor little Percival Lighted the curse of all Foemen. who fancied their labour was done. (Sir George Beaumont went in last but one, and he aud the last wicket, Percival, ran the score up to 130.) Let then Loughborough say, Though they lost the day’s play, That their feelings to anger are q -ite the reverse; For the parties who came For a jolly good game Might go a deal farther, we think, and fare wors?. I believe that the verdict of those who read this effusion will b3 that the chronicle of the progress of the game is lucid aud graphic, and the lines pointed and witty beyond the average. The accomplished author con­ tributed to tbe earlier numbers of “ Once a Week ’’ several poetical pieces of acknowledged merit, worthy, indeed, of the excellent illustrations by Leech, Tenniel, and Millais which accompany them. I think, however, my favourite was, and still is, one in which be depicts a young Adonis fresh from the country, delighted with his success at a London rout , where the belle finds his waltzing just the thing to show her off, aud drops him the next day like the perennial hot potato— And this when you sum it all up is The result, though your feelings it hurt?, All men are self-confident puppies, All women are frivolous flirts. Benson, who was a London police magistrate, died about ten years ago. The A ll Muggleton and a kindred club, the Staffordshire Rangers, eventually merged into the Free Foresters, which in its turn did some service to the cause of cricket in the Midlands before its operations were ex­ tended over a wider field, and it became the cosmopolitan concern which it is now. Naturally I like to look back to these early days, as I do with a partial eye; not so much so, however, as to prevent me from admi ting, if asked the qu?stion, that a gr<?at deal more good cricket is played now than was the case then, and that the general level of excellence in the game is much enhanced. I am not, however, prepared to say that too much cricket may not be played, aud that the systematic competition between counties may not ba carried too far. It is obvious that the more you regulate and systematise a game or a contest, the less spontaneous and more mechanical it b: comes, and paid men, by which I mean men who have an eye to direct gain, must take the place of volunteers, who cannot afford to give more than the time which from other concerns they can spare. This again induces managers to multiply engagements so that the professionals may be fully employed, and the public money attracted as often as possible, and so cause and effect act and react upon one another, until the result is that very few men are able to play for their county unless they become professionals altogether, and, as was evidenced in more instances than one during the last season, when the total absence of interruption from bad weather showed the present high-pressure system at its highest, the strain to spectator and performer aHke became too great for endurance. Now first of all I thoroughly agree with the late Mr. Fitzgerald in his discouragement of what he calls “ the gladiatorial system* the paid contestant and the pampered spec­ tator.” The great merit of cricket is its adaptability to all sorts aud conditions of men, and that merit c3ases if it becomes from any circumstances confined to one section of the community. If county cricket can only be played by men whose whole business it is to practise the art, these men must be raised, trained, and subsidised, and the man of local ability or local interest who is unable to comply with the demands made upon bim by the terms of service under which alone he can hope to be enrolled under the county banner must be excluded. The rising generation of gentlemen, at a period when even in our public schools the su­ premacy of our national game is threatened by the rival attractions of golf and tennis, may be induced to suffer these attractions to preponderate, if they are l°d to believe that tbeir devotion to the old English sport can never win them the reward of the gratification of their honourable ambition to be numbered amorg the chosen champions of their native county. Perhaps it may be said that this will be no loss to the game, and that the public recognize the fact and do not care if men of education and position are no longer to be reckoned with for cricket representation in the counties. I hold that this assertion is, to use the phrase logy of the Monson verdict, not proven, but if it were manifestly true, I should still contend that what attracts is not the sole criterion of what is best for the game. When English rowing became a purely pro­ fessional matter it began to decay, and even in football the influence of the subsidized e’ ementisnot altogether for the better. The long-legged adventurer who l°ft his native glens of yore, like Quentin Durward, to take mercenary service under a foreign s andard, may be as hone«t and valorous as that doughty hero, but it is impossible that he should have the same single-minded devotion to his side that the patriotic native has; so now, but for the Old Westminsters, Carthusians, and o*h=r teams of public school men, we should find it hard to keep up an unmonetary standard of interest in the game of football, and I should be sorry to see this the case with cricket. I notice some observations of Lord Hawke’s bearing upon this subject, with the spirit of which I entirely agree; indeed, the noble Lord has so good a right to speak on any practical question connected with cricket, that should I differ from him, I would express my dissent w i‘h bated breath; yet if I am correct in my interpretation of his remarks, I cannot but hint a doubt whether the remedy he proposes will ba found efficjcious. We have gone too far to retrace our steps to the informal mode of days long gone b y ; the fact cannot be denied that a classification of counlies has become (whether legitimately or no) a reality, and as such must be faced. My own view (probably crude) would be to group counties and select the leading elevens of various parts of England. Surrey and Middlesex for instance are metropolitan elevens rather than county teams, and if huge London extends much farther, Kent and Essex will soon have to be added. The mining, the manufactur­ ing, and the agricultural counties will fall into a natural grouping, nor must Scotland be forgotten. Thus I can quite well see that six representative teams might annually be selected from their last year’s record to do battle for the championship. However these matters may be adjusted, I hope that the cricket world in general and M.C.C. in par­ ticular will keep in view two leading prin­ ciples, the first, the obligation to discourage that odious parasite the ‘ ‘ win— tie—or