The Ladies' Guide to Cricket

INTRODUCTION. Mil. R ook (timidly) : *' Pair readers all—and may yo not bo few— I beg to introduce myself to you." L ady P ublic (hnutily) : “ Dear me! what impudence! we’re quite upset— ’ Tis plain you're not a Book of Etiquette V ’ M r . B ook (appealingly) : “ Kuiglits of the willow to the rescue fly, Ere.’neath that withering glance of scorn I die: For my unwitting error make amends Kindly present me to your lady friends !” CHAPTER I. • A PRELIMINARY CANTER. # W hy is it that so many ladies find cricket slow? Simply because they do not understand the game. Griven a fine day, a pretty ground, a band, and pleasant society, two or three hours may be spent agreeably enough ; but deprived of all or any of these accessories, the merely watching a number of flannel-clad fellows knocking a ball about with a bat, and going through various strange and apparently purposeless evolutions, is not very interesting. The average lady spectator views the finest cricket pretty much as Peter Bell regarded the beauties of nature : “ A primrose on the river’ s brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more." But, unlike Wordsworth’s stolid creation, sho is apt and eager to learn if any one will take tbo trouble to unfold the mysteries of the game, without perplexing his fair hearer with unexplained technical terms and refined details. Wordsworth, it is true, ehose a donkey as the means of awakening Peter Bell to a sense of his icsthetie deficiencies; let us hope that the writer’ s fair patrons will not pronounce him to ho one of the mme tribe. But, even so, to advance the noble game he is billing to write himself down an ass. All this, however, is not iricket. its leading features once understood, the rest will