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58 sufficiently paid, and it transpired that £150 was the sum paid to sundry players for five matches. The Australians have, man for man, made far more money in England than our English professionals have in Australia; and from a social point of view both should be treated alike—with hospitality and welcome—but alike. The proper ideal is that there ought to be two, and only two classes—Gentlemen and Players—with no hybrid mixture of the two.

There is one other point of view in which the modern system of gate-money, champion county, &c., has been productive of much evil, viz., that everything goes to the county which has the longest purse, so as to cause a jumbling up of counties that is positively bewildering. A rich county like Surrey or Lancashire scour the country and buy cricketers whom their poorer neighbours cannot afford to keep; and a professional, having to earn his living, is only too glad to be bought by a first-class county to play first-class cricket, and, if lucky, to get a good