Page:Cricket (Lyttelton, 1898).djvu/116

112 and though, as in every other walk of life, the crowds are a nuisance and a hindrance to the enthusiast's real enjoyment, still Lord's is, after all, the real ground to enjoy cricket on; and long may it be played there, urgently desirable as it is that the M.C.C. should abolish carriages and let us walk round the ground in peace.

It must appear odd to the University player of to-day, to whom the University match is the match of his lifetime, to be told that in 1869 no less a man than the late Attorney-General, Sir R. T. Reid, was absent during the second innings of Oxford, and the present Bishop of Liverpool was the same; whilst in the following year Oxford began and finished the match with only ten men. The late Lord Dudley was absent one innings in 1841, and one from each side were absent in the second innings in 1850. These facts justify us in concluding that the play was conducted far less systematically in those days. If a man found it inconvenient, he very likely declined to