Page:Cricket, by WG Grace.djvu/107

 ensued, and it must have been unpleasant to the players who stood out to read:

"The Northern Managers have experienced great difficulty in getting together their strength, and whilst endeavouring to smooth down the feeling which exists between certain players and the Surrey authorities, they have shown that they are not wholly reliant upon a particular division to supply an eleven to represent the North."

In the early part of 1864 an agitation was set going in one of the leading sporting papers which had for its aim the formation of a "cricket parliament" to depose the Marylebone Club from its position as the authority on the game; but it met with little countenance, and the old club, which had now played on its present ground for fifty years, was allowed to carry on the work which it, and it alone, seemed to be able to do with firmness and impartiality. If evidence were wanting of the M.C.C.'s interest and consideration for the game at that period, we have only to look at the number and quality of matches played by it. During the year 1864 it played as many as 34 matches, including such clubs as Cambridge and Oxford Universities; Eton, Harrow and Rugby Schools; the Army Club, Royal Artillery, and some of the minor counties. Show us how we can do good to the game and we shall endeavour to do it, has always been the aim of the Committee of the M.C.C., and it would have been a thousand pities if the Club had been deprived of its powers at that critical period of cricket history.

June the 10th of the same year saw an important alteration in the laws. The Willsher episode of 1862 was still fresh in the memories of players, and after vainly trying to get umpires to "no-ball" a bowler when he raised his arm above the shoulder,