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Rh number of competitors, it was clearly impossible to maintain the original principle that each county should play home and home matches with every other, especially in those years when an Australian eleven was in England. Some of the larger and richer counties manage to get through so huge a programme, even with Australian matches thrown in, but in ordinary years the original number of eight is retained as the qualifying number, reducible by decree of the M.C.C. in those years when reduction is necessary. It was in consequence of the increase in the number of the playing counties that the proportional system of 1895 was introduced.

We may now glance at the history of the various first-class counties, taking them seriatim; and I must here express my indebtedness to K. S. Ranjitsinhji's Jubilee Book of Cricket, which is a perfect mine of information on the subject.

Derbyshire.—Though the county club only came to its birth in 1870, cricket had long flourished in the land, fostered largely, as one authority tells us, by the clergy. "The game in Derbyshire," he tells us, "owes much at one time and another to the parsons—a fact that is perhaps worthy of more general recognition than is sometimes allowed." The first appearance of the new county was remarkable, as on the Old Trafford ground, in its very first match, it defeated no less a side than Lancashire by an innings and 11 runs, the home county mustering no more than 25 notches in its first innings, when Gregory actually had six wickets for 9 runs. So