The Life of a Great Sportsman 



Cricket Ground invariably appeared to the naked eye to be 

 entertaining as large a company within its gates as could be 

 accommodated with any degree of comfort ; but for all that 

 there always seemed abundance of room to move about. 

 Youthful swells about town not only could, but did, ride 

 their hacks on to the ground, where they were quickly 

 surrounded by little knots of admiring friends still in bondage, 

 and longing for the good time coming, when " absence " would 

 be a thing of the past, and they would act as their own 

 prepostors. 



There was plenty of hospitality going in those days, on the 

 drags and in the carriages which lined the ground in great 

 profusion, but it was nothing like the huge picnic it has 

 developed into of recent years, since it became a Society 

 function and a popular attraction. 



At the time I am speaking about, the visitors to Lord's on 

 the Eton and Harrow match days were entirely composed of 

 those directly interested in one or other of the rival schools, 

 and who, but for that fact, would probably never have taken the 

 trouble to travel to St. John's Wood for the purpose of looking 

 on at a parcel of boys playing cricket. Nowadays it is alto- 

 gether different, and the chances are that if it came to a count, 

 it would be found that those spectators amongst the sterner sex 

 who, while applauding their loudest for Eton or Harrow, as 

 the case might be, were probably unconnected with either 

 school by any tie, however remote, far outnumbered those who 

 had a legitimate claim. The youthful card-merchants, with 

 their shrill cry of " Card o* the metch, gentlemen ! " are still 

 €n evidence during the play ; but, alas ! the white-aproned pot- 

 boy, the sight of whose pewter pots, glistening like silver in the 

 sun and cooling to the eye, rendered his appeal to " Give yer 

 order, gents," as he picked his way amongst the thirsty souls 



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