I.-Go in when told by your captain cheerfully, whether first or last on the list; it is his fault, and not yours, if you are put in in the wrong place.

II.-Think only of winning the match, and not of your own innings or average; sink self and play for your side.

III.-Make up your mind that every ball may take your wicket, and play very steady for the first over or two, even if the bowling is not first-rate; if prepared for defence, you are doubly prepared to hit a loose ball.

IV.-Except under special circumstances (Vide Rule XIV.), never run a sharp run, or run one instead of two; or two instead of three, for the sake of getting the next hit. V.-Be equally anxious to run your partner's runs, and every bye you safely can (although the byes do not appear to your name in the score), as you are to run for your own hits.

VI.—When the bowling is very quick, and long stop is a long way behind, arrange with your partner if possible to run a bye for every ball, until you drive your opponent to take a man from the field to back up behind the bowler.

VII.—If the field get wild, take every advantage you can, by drawing for overthrows; if the field once begin throwing at the wickets their discipline is gone. In carrying out this and Rule VI., great judgment is required, as you are backing your steadiness against your enemy's anxiety.

VIII.-Remember the batsman has five things to trust to, viz., his brains, his eyes, his arms, his legs, and his tongue, and he must use them all.

IX.-The striker ought to be stone blind to every ball which passes his wicket, or is hit behind his wicket; he is a blind man, and the non-striker is the blind man's dog, and ought to lead him straight. The same rule applies to the non-striker in respect to balls driven past him or out of his sight.

X.—The man who has the ball in sight ought to keep his partner informed of his movements. Ex. grat., the non-striker (who ought to back up directly the ball is out of the bowler's hand) should cry "not yet," if the run for a hit behind the wicket or bye is not certain; and then cry "hold" if there is no run; or "three," as the case may be, if there is a bye, or a hit past the field. So for a hit to one," " two," or middle off or middle on out of non-striker's sight, the striker ought to cry if there is no run, or " one," &c., as the case may be, if there is a run. first run made the player whose wicket is most in danger has the call. XI.-In the case of a hit within view of both batsmen, such as a ball hit slowly to deep cover point, either batsman has the right to say "no," if called, for both wickets are in equal danger.

go back,"

After the

XII.-After drawing your partner past re-call, you are bound to go, and run yourself out if necessary, be you who you may.

XIII.-No matter what you think of the umpire's decision, if he gives you out go away and make the best of it.

XIV. If the batsman is well set, and is making a score, and a few runs are wanted, and there is a weak tail to the eleven, he is right when a fresh man comes in, in trying to "jockey the over," and get the ball; this is not selfishness, as he is throwing away a chance of a "not out," and may pull the match out of the fire.

XV.-If the bowling is very slow and the batsman makes up his mind to go in at it, he should not give the bowler a hint by any movement what he is after, but stand like a statue till the ball is out of the bowler's hand.

XVI.-If the batsman does go in and means hitting, let him go far enough, and right in towards the pitch of the ball, so as to catch it at full pitch or half volley, and hit with all his might and main; if stumped, he may just as well be for four yards off his ground as four inches.

XVII.-If a batsman either does not know, or will not practice the rules of running, his partner is quite at liberty to use his own judgment, and to turn Jound and look after the byes, hits behind wickets, &c., and if a bad runner insists on running himself out, his partner may let him commit suicide as soon as he pleases.

XVIII.-Never keep your partner in doubt by prowling about outside your wicket backwards and forwards over the crease like a dancing bear, or a mute outside a gin shop, doubtful whether he is going in or out; a silent" wanderer" is even more dangerous than a noisy bad runner.

XIX.-Remember, cricket is an amusement and manly sport intended for good fellowship, and not as a vehicle for envy, hatred, malice, or uncharitableness. If you have any complaint against your captain, tell him to his face quietly what you thigk; but do not form conspiracies against him behind his back, The grumblers

and mischief makers are always the greatest muffs, and the worst enemies of cricket.

THE ONE GOLDEN RULE FOR FIELDING,

XV.-Take the place assigned to you (assuming it is within your capacity), and give your whole mind to the game, from the delivery of the first ball to the fall of the last wicket. If you make a mistake, try and mend it; many a good field has dropped an easy catch and picked up the ball, and thrown it in and run a man out. Remember the backing up. A fields-man is not a sentry on duty, but is always a fighting soldier, and if a fiver is hit to the off, long leg even can go into the battle and render his aid. Every hit which is made is the business of the whole eleven in the field, until the ball is dead. A man who will not attend unless a ball comes near him, had much better be in the tent smoking his pipe.

I cannot resist publishing a cricket bill, which would have rejoiced the heart of old Nyren and made the old Hambledon Club sing with joy. We thought for some time that the fairies must have come out of a night, for we found our cricket ground cut up in the middle, and could not imagine who could have done it until the following bill was circulated. It is a fact that not only do the shop-boys play matches at 4 A.M., but they play real good cricket, too, with a fair promise of bringing out county colts. The nicknames remind one of cricket 150

years ago.

NOVEL MATCH.-A Cricket Match between the Upper Mitcham Early Rising Association versus Lower Mitcham Peep O'Day Club, will be played on Lower Mitcham Green on Wednesday Mornings, July 6th and 13th, 1870. The Players will be selected from the following:

UPPER MITCHAM.
W. Hotspur

W. Eighty-two
H. Bourne
A. Tinneley
W. Ironside
The Dwarf

J. Arthur
W. Gardener

F. Nicholls

Chippendale

The Early Bird

LOWER MITCHAM.

F. Bubb

A. J. Brown

H. Sugar
Doctor Nicholls
W. Poyner

C. Newell

H. Hendon

C. Russell

H. Langridge

J. Seymour

A. Knapp

Wickets to be Pitched at 3.30 A.M. Play to commence at 4 precisely. Stumps to be drawn at 7 o'clock each Morning.

I have kept clear of anecdotes hitherto, but I must relate two or three little incidents which occurred in a club with which I used to play nearly twenty years ago. We used to delight in going thirty miles out for a match, especially if we had a dozen miles by road. On one of these happy holidays a member of our club, who was called the "wet blanket," to our surprise volunteered to accompany us. He was a very strictly religious and sincere man, and was suspected of preaching on a Sunday at Little Bethel. We all liked him, for we knew he was honest; but he kept us in strict order. One of our eleven, X., was notorious for getting into a row wherever he went, and someone had to keep watch over him at dinner to see that he did not over-sherry himself. The landlord of the village inn who supplied our dinners was an

enterprising fellow, and laid in a stock of very fine sparkling cyder at 1s. 6d. a bottle, and our moral man, old J., complimented him highly on it, and took occasion to remark that cyder purified the blood, and he was always vexed to see young fellows swilling beer and sherry. When the match was over, as usual, we had to look for X., who came staggering up the village very drunk, with a black eye and cut lip, having fought a gipsey who kept some knock-'em downs.

Whilst we were looking after X. the landlord came up with a long face informing us that old J. was seriously ill in his bar-parlour. It was too true; the poor old boy had purified his blood with the bottled cyder, and being unaccustomed to drinking, was as drunk as a boiled owl or corn whiskey, as Artemus Ward used to say. He sat in a chair with a woeful expression, and kept on saying, "Gentlemen, I am ashamed of my disgraceful position. Am I a man?"

We really was sorry for him, and put him inside the coach, when up comes X., who of course wanted to drive. What was to be done? X. was too drunk to go outside, and we tried to put him inside. "No," said X., "I'm d -d if I go with old J., I am not of the same

religion as he is."

Poor old J. never appeared amongst us again on the cricket ground, though we never chaffed him about an incident which he took so much to heart; but all the way home, whenever we stopped, he kept on asking the idlers about the coach, “Am I a man? I am ashamed of my disgraceful position,"

A boy at Winchester was an invaluable assistant to those who were going in for examinations, by getting up difficult points in some ludicrous way, either in the shape of a comic song, mock heroic verse, or some other attractive form. One question was always asked in the divinity examinations, and that was, "Give the names and ages of the Patriarchs ?" H was equal to the occasion. As we were all mad about cricket at school and used to read the scores in Bell's Life carefully. H-made out the list of the Patriarchs as a cricket eleven, putting down their ages as the number of runs, and adapting the game to the then present time. Thus, he commenced with

In this out."

way he made out an entire list, and put down Enoch as not

One more story and I have done :

On starting for a match a note came from one of our members, who was our best bowler, stating that he had a pressing engagement in the City with the Lord Mayor, which he must keep, but he hoped to come down by the 12 o'clock train. Poor R. never came, as the Lord Mayor pressed him to pass a few weeks with Mr. Cope, the then Governor of Newgate, from whose custody he was transferred to a convict ship, and left his native land for life. He had committed a series of very bad forgeries. Let us hope that he has long since obtained his freedom, and is now a liberal supporter of cricket in Australia, for he was a rare firm bowler, and a merry fellow as ever went in a cricket ground.

CHAP. XV. (AND LAST).

The Balls are over."

Some of the umpires of the present day corrupt the four words which are written at the beginning of the chapter into" Ver," just as the butcher boy announces his arrival by saying " Cher."

In May last, when we were getting out our bats and preparing for the campaign of 1870, I introduced myself in this magazine to the reader as a curly-headed little boy about six, who was aroused by a beebumping against a window pane; and I fancy that anyone who has travelled along with me during the last four months, must have come to the conclusion that I have now, what is called in Scotland" a bee in my bonnet."

There is more hope of my getting over my insanity than there was, as I feel that I have said all that I had to say; I have talked about every kind of cricketer, I believe, except the universally surly man, and the man who tries to make for himself a local position by cricket. To say much about them is waste of good ink. The game is too good for them. In writing these articles on cricket I have had one feeling throughout, which has been to stand boldly up for the excellence of the past without disparaging the cricket of the present. In proof of this, the reader is referred to an article called "Retrospect of the gentleman and players match," which I wrote in Bell's Life in July 1869, as an amateur communication. The great anxiety to decry the performances of men in the past and to claim all excellence for men of the present, always savours to me of ingratitude towards the noblemen and gentlemen and professionals who added so many storeys to the home in which we live. We might just as well say that the Duke of Wellington was no general, and that Nelson was no sailor, because they did not live in the days of breech-loading guns, minnie rifles, and steam navy; but I rather fancy that the general who turned quietly to his staff in the middle of the Battle of Waterloo, and said, "This is hard pounding gentlemen," and the little one-armed sailor who put his glass to his blind eye, and said, "Damn it Foley, I can't see the signal to retreat, were not unlikely men to prove useful in any age.

Why then, I ask once more, are we to believe that Englishmen, made of as good stuff as ourselves, at any rate, who for a hundred years past played with a ball similar to our's, at a game, also, similar to our's, and with a bat of the same kind though of a some what different shape, all failed in attaining as great excellence in any point of the game, as certain men of the present day?

A writer in the Sporting Magazine, of 1827, when the round arm bowling controversy was at its height, writes: "the more talk the less conversion." Perhaps this is so in my case; and at any rate, brother cricketers, amateurs, and professionals, whatever our difference of opinion may be, let us shake hands now, and if we agree to differ let us also agree in our common creed, and let our creed be this:

Cricket is only worthy of the name when it is played by two elevens consisting of true and honest fellows, who without fear, favour, or jealousy, are ready to make a long day's fight for the victory of their side.

I am not sure that I should not claim any cricket brother as most

orthodox if he had courage to add the creed after the word " side," "especially if they burned the score book and notched on a stick." And now my friend, Mr. Penny-a-liner whose slang I protest against my anger is over, and you may go round into the kitchen and ask for a glass of beer.

So let us pull down the tents and flags, and put our bats away till next year. It must be done, perhaps reluctantly, just as I lay down my pen with a sigh, and say, "Farewell."

A GLIMPSE

A T

BIMSHIRE:

BY A MAN ON THE SICK LIST.

I, as a late arrival from the civilized world, was largely questioned as to passing events there, and, as each of these anxious inquirers felt a special interest in a different subject, my general information need have been great indeed to have satisfied their thirst for knowledge. After mess there was a cigar in the verandah, then a rubber in the anteroom, and then we retired to bed-would that I could add to sleep.

I was to pass the night on a sofa in my cousin's outer room, as he called it, the fact being that his quarter consisted of one large room with a partition about seven feet high across the middle of it, which divided it into two parts and rendered each private as far as sight went, but the room being fourteen feet high, of course all sound was common to the two compartments-luckily neither of us snored.

My cousin warned me that he was an early bird in the tropics, and that his servant would come to call him shortly after morning gun-fire. I congratulated myself on seeing, as I wound up my watch, that it was not yet midnight, and that I should get a good night's rest, which I rather wanted after the fatigues of the day.

Rest! I had just got over the strange feeling of sleeping in the open air, for the windows, or what did duty for them, were all open, and every sound of the night was heard by me as distinctly in the room as if I had been lying on the roof, and had begun to feel a little drowsy, when biz-z-z sounded in my ear and made me start. Ah! I thought, that must be a gnat. A gnat, indeed! As the pet kitten of domestic life is to the man-eater of the Indian jungle, so is the British gnat to the Barbadian mosquito. I was not long in doubt; a second biz-z-z, which suddenly ceased and was as suddenly succeeded by a sensation as of a fine needle being inserted into the flesh immediately under the left eye, caused me to start into full consciousness and clap my hand to my face; and from that moment until I arose in the morning, feeverish, disfigured, and half maddened by my fiendish persecutors, it was biz-z, dart, clap, all night long. Oh! ye gentlemen of England "who live at home at ease" and read "An Evening with Burns," how little do ye dream about the horrors of a night with the mosquitos in a West Indian barracks.

It really was no joke. A single sheet being my only