Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/369

 9 th S. I. MAY 7, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

361

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1898.

CONTENTS. -No. 19.

OTBS : Stonyhurst Cricket, 361 Works on Tobacco, 36 Sir C. Murray and Goethe Mrs. Adams and Mrs. H. B me, 363 San Lanfranco Monks and Friars Henry ford, Duke of Buckingham, 364 Sir George Etheredg Fond" Wild Geese Emblems of Constancy, 365 wningiana Rhyme for Book-borrowers Binding o iodicals Chancellor Harcourt, 366. QUERIES : Port Arthur Key of the House of Commons- "A crow to pluck with" Domestic Implement " Th defects of his qualities " Fesswick Royer's ' Histoire d la Colonie Francaise en Prusse 'Wedding Eve Custom 367 Inventories of Church Goods Three Impossibl Things Essay by Carlyle List of Books German School Tattooing in Japan French Psalter Clockmaker Roll in Augmentation Office " Auld Kirk" 'The Colleen Bawn,' 368 Crabe of the Greine " Scotch "Edward Parry" Posca" Scotch Farm Leases, 369.

REPLIES : Siege of Siena, 369-Swansea, 370 Dame E Holford, 371 Bibliography of Rye House Plot Tapestry Melton Club Breadalbane Armorial Rotten Row, 37i "Esprit d'escalier" Tyrawley=-Wewitzer Cold Har bour Christening New Vessels Canaletto, 373 Com mander-in-Chief Elephant Masterson G-oudhurst, 37' Hogarth's ' March to Finchley ' Bath Apple Gloves at Fairs "Buried, a Stranger," 375 To "Bull-doze" General Wade Mr. John Chapman The Death of Chat- ham " Strongullion " Draycot Transcripts of Parish Registers, 376 Col. Ferribosco Branwell Moon through Coloured Glass Plural of Nouns in O Rifled Firearms- Daniel Hooper, 377 Culamites Authors Wanted, 378.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Merewether's 'Tour through the Famine Districts of India' Reviews, Magazines, anc Periodicals.

Notices to Correspondents.

STONYHURST CRICKET. MOST Englishmen take a certain interest in cricket. I therefore venture to write about an archaic form of that game which has only died out within the last few years. It was played at the Roman Catholic College of Btonyhurst, Lancashire, and an account of it appeared in the Stonyhurst Magazine for May, 1885. As to its origin, it may have been a survival of a local form of cricket ; but as the College was not removed to its present site till near the end of last century, when cricket had almost assumed its present form, this seems hardly probable. It is more likely that Father Robert Persons, an Oxford man, who founded the College at St. Omer in 1592, took with him this game, which he had played in his youth. Thence it would have been handed on to Bruges in 1762, to Liege in 1773, to which places the College was suc- cessively moved, and at length Drought to Stonyhurst in 1794. In the Willett collection at Brighton there are two or three specimens of the bats used in this form of cricket, also a ball, and a water-colour drawing of a youth batting, his costume indicating that it dates from the earlier part of this century. I believe that these are all copies or repro-

ductions, the originals being preserved at Stonyhurst.

The following notes are partly founded on my observation of the Willett collection, partly taken from the college magazine. The wicket was a large stone, 17 in. high and 13 in. broad. The bat was 4|in. wide and nearly 3 ft. 2 in. long, without any shoulders, but gradually tapering towards the handle. It weighed from ll to 2 ib. The game was a sort of single wicket, the bowling distance being about thirty yards. The bowler de- livered the ball as fast as he could under- hand, and the batsman, who never blocked, could refuse it if it came as a full pitch or bounded only once. The ball itself was not a simple orb, but had a raised seam running round it from half to three-quarters of an inch broad ; except for this rim it looked like an ordinary small cricket-ball, and was made by the local shoemakers.

The rules of the game as given in the Stony- hurst Magazine are not complete or explicit. The only other writer who has touched upon the subject, so far as I am aware, is Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, in his ' Stonyhurst Memories.' He throws fresh light on it; but his account hardly agrees with that given in the maga- zine, nor does his description of the im- plements of ^ the game correspond in all particulars with the appearance of those at Brighton. Perhaps he will forgive my quoting him somewhat at 'length. He writes as follows :

"The reader will wonder as he hears how our cricket was conducted. It was played with a sort of club, slightly curved, bound with thick waxed cord and having a fine spring. The wickets were nothing more nor less than stones. We always insisted that they must have been discarded mile- stones from their shape. There was opportunity for fine sweeping strokes, and a long-armed fellow would flourish the bat over his head before striking. The balls were formed of strips of india-rubber wound round and round and tightened, the whole jeing covered with kid leather sewn on with extra- ordinary neatness. Seven or eight of these were prepared for a match, which usually took place on Sunday in the summer. There were three or four )layers on each side, those who were ' out ' standing twenty or thirty yards off. When the ball was sent against the wall it rebounded into the air, describing a long parabola. It had then to touch bhe palm of the hand, which dropped it on to the ground, and as it rose it was sped back with great orce. A skilful player did wonders under these Lifficulties."

The concluding paragraph of this descrip- ion is, I confess, a complete puzzle to one vho has only played the ordinary form of ricket. Are we to understand that at the itonyhurst game it was the correct thing or the fields to miss catches? Perhaps