Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/229

Rh presence of amateurs is no whit less than their value as players, preventing as it does the somewhat sordid troubles that are apt to arise among those to whom cricket is a livelihood, and not merely a pastime. Further, a great deal has been said and written—mainly by those who know nothing of the subject—as to the exact relations existing between the amateur and the professional. Only ignorance permits a man to apply such a word as "snobbish" to the custom of providing separate accommodation for the two classes of players; worse is it when such a one hints at such a thing as stand-offishness on the part of the amateurs. There are certain differences in the education and the social position of the two classes that makes the closer intimacy of the pavilion undesirable, and undesired also by both parties. At any rate, cricketers are perfectly capable of making all such arrangements for themselves, without the intrusion and interference of others. They have their own code and their own method, nor does there exist any analogy between the regulations, especially as to the amateur status, of cricket and of other games. Cricket stands on its own pedestal, and it is good that it should.

One of the troublous parts of cricket legislation has been the question of the residential qualification ot cricketers for their counties, and the manner of defining what bona fide residence is. It has been always recognised, I believe, that a man may play for the county in which he was born, or for the county in which he resides, though for "or" might have been