James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1883

P A R T I. C H A P T E R I. T H EL A T EJ A M E SL I L L Y W H I T E . THE brain which devised the conception of the Annual, will no longer be exerted in the task of providing amusementfor cricketers . Thehandwhich has for twelve years contributed so muchto the enjoyment of thousands, who love our national game, is lifeless . In losing James Lillywhite , cricket haslost a tried a n dzealous friend. O fthe extent of the loss of his honest counsel , andkindly advice to those who have been from the first , responsible for the conduct of the Annual, it is best to be silent . It is of him, as a cricketer , and an earnest upholder of everything manly and straightforward in cricket , that we prefer to speak of him in the book which will still bear his n a m e. It is a comfort to think of him here, as we have knownhim, ever a zealous and disinterested supporter of the game, unwearying in devotion in anything likely to conduce to the advancementof cricketers . Unpretentious and unostentatious in all he did , he was, perhaps , personally little knownto the present generation of players . It is only those who knew, as w e, whose pleasure it has been for twelve years to workwith himin the management of this Annual , whocan testify to the thorough interest he took in cricket . His active career as a player was cut short by an accident ; but his earnest sympathywas to the last with the game he loved so well. Reference need only be madeto the last Annual, to showthe zeal with which he espoused anysubject he thought right to advocate , Thosewhoread n o w " A Good-Natured Growl, " in that volume , will be able to recognise , too , the excellence of his judgment in calling attention to the abuses of the cricket field . H e could not be ill -natured ; it was not in his disposition . The suggestions he madewere in a kindly and modest spirit ; but he had the satisfaction of seeing everyone of them taken up actively by competent and responsible authorities , and before the appearance of this brief notice of " Old Jim," more than one of them, in all probability , will have become law. Inhis ownquiet wayhe was the championof everything calculated to improve the tone of the sport . N ocricketer , of whatever his station , but hadhis good word-it was sufficient passport to his affection to feel that theyhadthe onec o m m o nbondof interest in the game. It is not the fitting place to write here of his many social virtues as a son, a husband, and a father . N o one whoknewhimso well as the writer of these lines did, B