Cricket 1902

418 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. S ept . 18, 1902. more conclusively than in this match how far he stood above all the rest of the cricketers of that day; no other man in the match made 30 runs in a single innings.” It was mentioned in Cricket two or three weeks ago that Mr. Gale had some practice on the matting wicket laid down by Martin and Walter Hearne in the county hall at Canterbury, a lofty, empty building, some thirty yards square, with large skylights in the roof. Of this practice he said “ I put sixpence on the wicket and they were to get me out ten times. The first three balls took me by surprise and away went one and six­ pence ! But I am glad to say it was forty minutes before the whole ten six­ pences were disposed of against a right and left handed bowler bowling alternate balls. On the next day I had twenty- five balls from each, and they each got me four times, but not once was I hit on the legs. Of course I was stiff afterwards, for I had not held a bat in my hand in England since 1883, on my sixtieth birthday, when I retired from the game on the 16th July. On that day I received 235 balls from the staff of ground bowlers at the Oval—Bowley being the first—each bowler to bowl a dozen balls, myself putting a shilling on the wicket every ball, and if the bowler did not earn his shilling in 12 balls he might go on again till he d id ; Bowley sent down three dozen and on com­ mencing his fourth dozen he earned twelve pence and a wet shirt. This feat reads rather grand on paper; but prac­ tically to a man who has learnt his leg- guard thoroughly and the full use of a straight bat with left Bhoulder well up, and forward play, it is very simple on a good wicket to guard the stumps when the only danger is being bowled; the longer the bowler works the bigger the ball seems. To show the possibility of guarding the wickets without the unfair system of using the pad as a second line of defence, I state truthfully that pending the delivery of the 235 balls I was not o-’ ce, as stated before, touched on the pad, which consisted of a small guard four inches wide in front of the shins and lightly stuffed at the knee and ankle.” “ Which means that you still think as strongly as ever on the subject of playing the ball with the pads ? ” “ Some time ago I wrote an article in ‘ Baily ’ in which I stated that in my time, men would sometimes draw away their left leg to make the ‘ leg draw.’ To this W. J. Ford in another article made the reply. ‘ Does’nt this look like funk ? ’ Ti is reminds me of an anecdote. I was at the annual Wykehamist dinner in London some six months after the Baily article appeared, and on a fine manly fellow returning thanks for the Army and Navy, I recognised him instantly as my old cricket fag at school. He was then—on the occasion of returning thanks —Sir Charles Hodges Nugent, K.C.B., a distinguished Engineer officer and a general. He was some four or five years younger than I, and I had not seen him since 1841, when I left the school. We had a hearty greeting after so many years, and he said, “ I was staying with the cavalry at Meerut, in India, last year, and Baily's was in the ante-room and I read your article; one of the young officers remarked that ‘ F.G. is at long­ bow practice.’ I told my friends then that when you were eighteen and a prefect at Winchester, you nailed me as your cricket fag, and used to get me to throw at your leg as hard as I could when you were at the wicket without pads, and that you often used to tuck up your trousers to the knees and let me throw at you any distance at your bare le g ! ’ I mention this reminiscence of Sir Charles Nugent to show that there was not as much funk as Mr. Ford seems to think. Would he have cared to let anybody throw at his bare leg when he was a boy ? Perhaps he would not have minded, for he was certainly not a funk himself, although he might have given us the credit of having a little pluck at least, since we did not wear pads against the fastest bowling on the worst of wickets.” “ You still think that cricket as it is played now does not give the bowlers a fair chance ? ” “ I don’t believe that the modern ‘ com­ mercial travellers,’ as I call certain of the amateurs, would play at all if they had to run everything out and use their bats instead of their pads. What’s the good of bursting yourself ? they ask, and add that ‘ if they had to run out many fourers, they would take precious good care to take things uncommonly easy until they had got their breath back again !’ Even in the field you don’t see them ‘ sprinting for all they are worth to cut off a ball frcm the boundary.’ The ‘ sprinting for all they are worth ’ is an expression of the advocates of the modem school—not mine. What I have always said about these men is that they may do what they like, and make their twenty thousand runs if they like, but they must have every thiog made as easy as possible for them. I am very glad to see that a lot of men have been punished lately for playing with their pads instead of their bats—dozens of them.” “ You would doubtless like to see the l.b.w. law revised ? ” “ I should like to see it as it used to be, that is to say, the pitch to be taken from the bowler’s h«nd to the other wicket. A man like Alfred Mynn, whose hand was four or live feet from the wicket, had a chance then, and the um­ pire took an imaginary line from his hand to the wicket, aud gave his decision accordingly. It worked very well, but I don’ t know how it would work in small matches nowadays. But at all costs 1 would compel a man to play with his bat and not with his pads. I have said all I have to say on this question, and have determined to write no more about it. From 1860, when I made Surrey my home, till 1883, when I finally retired, I spent all my spare time in the summer on country cricket grounds, and I say that throughout the county of Surrey, up to 1883, men bowled fair, played fair, and |ran their runs out oiten on open com­ mons, and I call that ‘ cricket.’ It does not matter much what I think about it, but some of the modern cricket so much resembles Sanger’sCircas or Buffalo Bill’s Show in principle that it comes down to the level of a gate-money exhibition. For many years I have been in co nstant communication with very many of the best cricketers of the past, who have held high office in the M.C.C., and who have spent large sums on the game, and they think with me that the chivalry of the game has been much frittered away.” Cricketers who have seen Mr. Gale at the Oval or at Lord’s this year may have noticed that he carries an umbrella with an enormously thick handle, at least as thick as some of the modern lawn-tennis racket handles. “ I am rather proud of that umbrella,” said Mr. Gale. “ I got it made by a man in Holborn who told me that he had the greatest possible difficulty iu gatting such a thick handle. The story of it is this :—In his hunting days the Hon. E. Grimston always acted as Master to Mr. Selby Lowndes’ Hunt if Mr. Lowndes was away. As a kind of acknowledgment Mr. Lowndes every Xmas sent to Mr. Grimston a walking- stick cut out of the ‘ Giimston Covert,’ which was named after him. These sticks accumulated, as Mr. Grimston never threw one away and never carried a stick or umbrella, but when he had his last illness he wanted support and always used one of the Selby .Lowndes’ sticks. When Mr. Grimston died the late Lord Verulan gave me his brother's stick as a memento, and I had au umbrella built on it. It was a ‘ mighty gamp,’ and I promised Mr. Y. E. Walker that I would leave it to the Harrow Museum when 1 died. I lost it some lime back ou the railway, and was dis­ consolate ; but I appealed to the public through the Sporting Life , and got it back. Mr. Walker suggested that it would be safer in the Museum at Harro w than with me, so I took it down there and got one made a Bize larger for fear of catching cold without it. I was neither a wicket-keeper, or bowler, or average-hunter. I was simply a man who worshipped the game and never broke an engagemeut, but I did my best. One of Mr. Gale’s most cherished possessions is a massive silver snuff box, with the following inscription : — Presented to F r e d er ic k G a l e , E sq ., by the S u r r e y C o u n ty C r ic k e t C l u b , at a Dinner given in his honour at Kennington Oval, on July 17th, 1901, in recognition of a life-long interest iu Surrey Cricket. At the time of its presentation he wondered what he would be able to use it for, since he did not take snuff, but a happy thought occurred to him, and he now uses it for tobacco, so that it is constantly before his eyes; for despite his seventy-nine years he enjoys a pipe as much as most people. W. A. B e t t e s w o r t h .