Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/23

8 to all of us who were well brought up directly we could walk; it is the means whereby we get recreation and exercise in youth and middle age; and when the muscles are withered and useless and no longer actively participate in games, still the eyes are there, and what the hands and muscles cannot perform, the eye can appreciate when looking on at others. The old therefore find their pleasure in criticism.

Consider for a moment what it means. A ball is the centre, the focus, the indispensable feature of cricket, football, golf, tennis, racquets, croquet, fives, lawn tennis, and billiards. If figures could be given on this subject it would be interesting. What is the annual cost of all these games? how much is spent in materials and rent? and finally, most astounding of all, how many human beings play in all these games, and how many go and look on at others?—if all this were known, humanity indeed would be staggered. To take first-class cricket alone, each year in England and Australia millions of spectators crowd to matches; there are county clubs, social clubs like Quidnuncs, the Zingari, Free Foresters, clubs belonging to iron-works, soap-works, working-men's institutes,