Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/727

 20, 1863.] men of low degree out of their regular calling to mix with people of quality, and making a business of the sport; drawing crowds together of people who could not afford the time; and denouncing the game as a notorious breach of the laws, as it openly encouraged gaming.

It is somewhat strange that a sport which was based on gaming should have acquired its present growth, on being divested of the gambling element; and so strong does the “anti-gambling feeling” now prevail, that the real supporters of the game of the present day, look with horror and dismay on the occasional single wicket matches which are got up by the betting Ring, for large wagers, between great players, and prophesy the fall of cricket unless these matches are stopped.

The first recorded score is of a match played on the Artillery Ground, Bunhill-fields, in the year 1746, between Kent and All England, Lord John Sackville being the challenger on the part of Kent; the result of which was that England lost by one wicket on that occasion; and, strange to say, they won by one wicket exactly a century later, in 1846, at Lord’s.

A good oil-painting of this match is to be seen at the Pavilion at Lord’s, in which three players are represented in pigtails and knee-breeches. The club-shaped bats which were used in that match are also preserved by the Marylebone Club.

From the date of this match there is a hiatus valdé deflendus till the year 1771, though before this date the celebrated Hambledon Club had sprung up. The little village of Hambledon, between Fareham and Southampton, was the nursery of cricket. The great supporters of cricket were Lord Tankerville, the Duke of Dorset, and Sir Horace Mann, and under their patronage the game made rapid strides in Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, and Hampshire. Matches were played for 500l. a side in those days, and from old ballads of the period we glean the fact that a good deal of betting used to take place as well.

John Nyren, the son of the celebrated Richard Nyren, who kept the house where the old Hambledon players first met, thus speaks of the old club (of which in his day he was a member), in his well-known little work of “Cricketers of My Time:”

Nyren speaks, too, of the drinks in which the spectators indulged:

The Hambledon Club by no means confined themselves to Hampshire men; several of them came from Surrey, and a few from Sussex; and it appears to have been the custom for the noble patrons of cricket to transplant good players from one part of England to another, and to make them dependents or retainers on their estates; and the players seem to have had the same position amongst the noblemen on whose estates they lived, as jockeys and trainers have amongst the leaders of the racing world in these days.

In 1774, cricket made a great start. Sir Horace Mann, who had promoted cricket in Kent, and the Duke of Dorset and Lord Tankerville, who seem to have been the leaders of the Surrey and Hants Eleven, conjointly with other noblemen and gentlemen, formed a committee under the presidency of Sir William Draper. They met at the Star and Garter, in Pall-mall, and laid down the first rules of cricket, which very rules form the basis of the laws of cricket of this day. The old skeleton hurdle was abolished, and wickets (two in number) 22 inches high and 6 inches wide, were substituted the weight of the ball was determined to be (as now) five ounces and a-half to five ounces and three-quarters. In the following year, 1775, a middle stump was added, and although the height and width of the wickets were twice increased subsequently, until they attained their present size, still, in all essential points—even allowing for the difference of cricket grounds, the comparatively rough materials for the game, and the changes in style—a cricket match in 1775 must have much resembled a cricket match in 1863. The next great step in cricket was the establishment of the White Conduit Club, in the year 1799; and amongst its members, in addition to the before-named patrons of the game, we find the names of Lord Winchelsea, Lord Strathnavon, and Sir P. Burrell. Their place of meeting was still the Star and Garter, and their ground was in White Conduit-fields. One of the attendants on this club, by the name of Lord, was persuaded to take a ground, which he did; and under the patronage of the old White Conduit Club, a new club, called the Marylebone Club, was formed at Lord’s ground, which was then situate on the site of the present Dorset-square. It would be superfluous to say anything about the Marylebone Club, as the fact is notorious that the rules of the Marylebone Club are the only rules recognised as authentic throughout the world, wherever cricket is played, and that the very mention of the name of the club in connection with any thing said or done in the cricketing world, is sufficient to stamp it as the right thing to say or do.

As to all the sayings and doings of cricketers, the songs they sang, and the tales they told, from the year 1746 till 1848 (to which date Mr. Lillywhite’s record at present extends), the reader must go to the text. There he will find the scores in full, and at the end of each match a faithful biography of the principal performers;