Page:The Cricket Field (1854).djvu/32

8 The lawyers have a rule that to specify one thing is to ignore the other; and this rule of evidence can never be more applicable than where a sport is omitted from six distinct catalogues; therefore, the conclusion that Cricket was unknown when those lists were made would indeed appear utterly irresistible, only—audi semper alteram partem—in this case the argument would prove too much; for it would equally prove that Club-ball and Trap-ball were undiscovered too, whereas both these games are confessedly as old as the thirteenth century!

The conclusion of all this is, that the oft-repeated assertions that Cricket is a game no older than the eighteenth century is erroneous: for, first, the thing itself may be much older than its name; and, secondly, the "silence of antiquity" is no conclusive evidence that even the name of Cricket was really unknown.

Thus do we refute those who assert a negative as to the antiquity of cricket: and now for our affirmative; and we are prepared to show—

First, that a single-wicket game was played as early as the thirteenth century, under the name of Club-ball.

Secondly, that it might have been identical with a sport of the same date called "Handyn and Handoute."

Thirdly, that a genuine double-wicket game