Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/230

150 written "and" as recently as 1873. Up to that date a man might, and many men did, play for two counties in one and the same season, under the two qualifications, while it was an understood thing that when those two counties met he represented the county of his birth. There were, however, obvious objections to this dual license, though they only first took shape in the form of proposed regulation in 1868. Five years later it was made law that a man who was doubly qualified must elect at the beginning of each season to play for one of these counties, and for no other. It was undoubtedly an abuse that such a state of things should exist, but it must have been a convenient source of revenue to a few professionals in the days when fees were low and matches few. But the accurate definition of bona fide residence is still a difficulty: in some cases a man has taken a room, or a room has been taken for him, in the county for which he is desired to qualify, and he has, as occasion suited, occupied it for a night or two, while similar evasions or elastic interpretations of the law have existed; but the present solution of the question is probably the best one, i.e. to fall back on the patient and ever-willing committee of the M.C.C., which consents to adjudicate on all such questions as they arise. It should be added that proposals have been made several times, notably by Lord Harris in 1880, that the residential period should be reduced to one year; but though this reduction would have acted well in certain cases, especially in those of Colonial and army players who took up their residence