Cricket 1907

A pkil 18, 1907. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 67 AT TH E SIGN OF TH E W ICKE T By F. S. A shlbt -O oopbr , Full details of the construction of the Demon-Drivers and other information of interest to GricKeters, w ill be found in the booKlet entitled The Evolution of a Cricket Bat, which may be obtained upon application, and from which the following extracts are taKen : — D OUBTLESS buyers frequently wonder why it is that some hats are sold as low as 5a., while others cannot be bought for less than 27a. 6d., both being made of similar material. The reason is very simple. The higher-priced bats, which must relatively be few in number, have to provide for the loss incurred in manufacturing the lower- priced bats, which are necessarily numerous. The figures here given approximately show the proportions of the various grades for 1,000 bats. They are based upon the average results produced in the ordinary course of manufacture. First or Best Division. 1st grade 20 2nd grade 50 3rd grade 100 4th grade 150 Second or Common Division. 5th grade 250 Lower grades 430 1,000. It will thus be seen that the manufacturer who intends to meet the ever-increasin| demand for really good cricket bats must carry an enormous stock of timber. The stock held by Geo. G. Bussey & Co., Ltd., represents 100,000 bats. The question is som< times asked why the “ Demon Drivers” are not more associated with the names of leading cricketers. It may be said, without presumption, that the answer involves a question of ethics which it is not intended to enter into beyond mentioning the fact that Geo. G. Bussey & Co., Ltd. (or their predecessors, Geo. G. Bussey & Co.) have never publish* d a testi­ monial relating to a cricket bat not purchased and paid for in the ordinary way of business Ciicktters all over the world are informed that orders for Bussey’ s goods should be placed with Dealers on the spot. Their manufactures are graded according to a properly devised system, which provides for cricketers purchasing from the dealers in the provinces or colonies receiving the same selection as if sent direct from the Factory GEO, e. BUSSEY & CO . , LTD, , 36 &38, Queen Victoria. St., LONDON. Mannfactory : p e c k h a m , s . e . Timber Mills: ELMSYVELL, SUFFOLK. Since the days “ When Cricket, glorious game, was young, What time old Nyren played and sung ” the game has changed in many re­ spects, but in few more marked than concerns the costume of the players. It is surprising — remembering how popular the game became under the patronage of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of George II.—that no description of the dress then worn by cricketers has been handed down. That those who performed before His Royal Highness, and in matches which he arranged, were allowed to appear clad in any style they might choose is difficult to believe, for in those days the most skilful exponents of the game belonged to the working classes, e g., the Bryans were bricklayers, Hodswell a tanner, Mills a bootmaker, Faulkner a prize­ fighter, &c. James Love, in his famous Poem of 1744, says, with irritating brevity: “ The robust cricketer plays in his shirt. The Rev. Mr. W------ d, particularly, appears almost naked.” Twenty years later another poem des­ cribes the dress of the Winchester bays : “ Cricket, nimble boy, and light, In slippers red and drawers white.” The old paintings tell us that in the middle of the eighteenth century the players wore knee-breeches and jockey caps, and this costume appears to have been fashionable for almost fifty years. The Hampshire Chronicle of July 25th, 1791, states that “ The Hambledon Club were uniformly dressed in sky-blue coats, with black velvet collars, and the C.C. (Cricketing Club) engraved on their buttons.” They also wore the knee- breeches, silk stockings, and silver- buckled shoes, and at one period of their existencedonned velvet caps. Mr. Pycrof t, in his Cricket Field, states that William Beldham could recollect John Wells tearing off a finger-nail against his shoe buckle whilst stooping to field a ball. In the days when great cricketers were engaged as retainers by the leading patrons of the game, different colours were used to distinguish in whose service the players were employed. Thus, those engaged by the Earl of Winchilsea always wore hats with gold binding and ribbons of particular colour. The mem­ bers of the M.C.C. donned “ sky-blue coats with gilt buttons, nankeen waist­ coats and breeches, drab beaver hats, green on the inside,” at the end of the eighteenth century, whilst those of the Montpelier Club wore “ white jackets and pantaloons, and round hats.” A good idea of the picturesque­ ness generally attaching to the dress of those days can be obtained by glancing at a copy of the well-known print representing the Oxfordshire Cricket Club in 1787—the very year which witnessed the formation of the M.C.C. The dtndified si’k ri.fflet fori a very prominent feature of the aitire, as they also do in that of the spectators shown in the coloured print, “ Cricket at Lord’s in 1822.’* Spikes for the shoes were initiated by R. Robinson, a Surrey man, abcut the year 1800, when thev were made “ a monstrous length.” The custom was to put one long spike in the heel of each shoe. So many accidents resulted that several writers considered it necessary to warn young cricketers of the harm they might occasion. Thus, in Felix on the Bat, the author at the foot of one of his humorous sketches entitled “ What you ought not to do,” observes: “ If possible, especially if you be a man of any weight, you should avoid digging the spike of your heel into your neighbour’s instep. The consequences are likely to be loss of blood, and ditto of temper.” Again, in British Sports and Pastimes, edited by Anthony Trollope, in an amusing des­ cription of a match between a local twenty-two and the All England Eleven, or another of the hydra-headed E.’s, one is asked to “ Imagine a whole district scoured for miles for anything in the shape of a player, and the strange ill- matched result in the shape of tiventy poor beggars treading on each other's toes with bran-new spikes, missing catch after catch, and eventually going in one after the other, like sheep to the slaughter, to “ ’ave their hover of Jackson . . . ,” &c. It was Robinson (“ Long Bob” ) also who was the first to don leg-gaards. These he placed angle-wise, and the leg- byes went off so clean, and with so much noise, that he was laughed out of his in­ vention. About the year 1830 the idea was partly revived by a small padded protection for the ankle being adopted. Tubular guard-gloves were invented by Daniel Day, of Surrey, about the year 1827, and they were first manufactured at the india-rubber factory of Mr. Wilson, at Streatham. Various attempts, by ridicule, were in vain made to prevent the custom of wearing the guards from becoming at all general. Mr. Charles CowdenClarke, inhis preface to the second edition of Nyren, 1840, confesses that if anything has given me a distaste to the ‘ modern school,’ it has been the dandyism which the gentlemen of the present day have been compelled to resort to, in order to preserve their precious fingers from the fury of the bowler : — I mean that of playing in stuffed m ittens! ‘ The cat in gloves catches no mice.’ Lord Frederick Beau­ clerck, Messrs. Ward, Ladbroke, Budd, never played in mittens; and I have not seen the elegant things done in the year 1840, that I remember to have witnessed thirty years ago.” A poet lamented the time— “ When gentlemen who played at cricket W ere content with a proper height wicket. * * * * When their legs wer’n’t all padding, Nor their arms all wadding, And they didn’t Blind a few stingers, And they never wore India-rubber fingers. ” Had Mr. Cowden Clarke suiv.v^d to these days he would doubtless Lave