John and James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Companion 1882

PREFACE. T H AT THIS ISSUE is the Thirty-eighth Edition of the Cricketers Companion and Guide is, we venture to think, sufficient proof of the value of our annual record of Cricket and Cricketers. The “ old Guide ” has had its imitators, but “ imitation is the sincerest flattery';” and, inasmuch as the prestige of our little work as the oldest and most valued of Cricket chronicles has never been threatened, nor its circulation approached by the most assertive of the newly-founded annuals, we do not doubt that + w 9 \ * tr * Mm _ * i r the Companion will continue to hold its own at the head o f affairs. 4 No pains or expense are spared by the proprietors to keep the book up to its old standard as the leading Cricket Magazine, and their best thanks are offered to the cricketing world for an ever-increasing share of i^atronage. The proprietors must again request Secretaries of Clubs to evince a little more energy in supplying details of the season’s t 1* H0 doings. Many leading Clubs, Colleges, and Schools make no sign until two or three special letters have been written to them. No trouble is spared on the part of the proprietors, and members of Clubs and Schools whose doings are unnoticed must lay the blame on their Secretaries.