straw hats. A few old fogies, veterans who played, had a silk pocket-handkerchief tied round the left knee so that they could drop down on it without soiling their white trousers; for in the rough out-fielding when the balls jumped about anyhow old-fashioned fieldsmen would drop on one knee, so that if the ball went through their hands by a false bound their body was in the way. Josiah Taylor, the brazier, was long- stop, and played in black leather slippers with one spike in the heel which he claimed as his own invention, as cricket-shoes were little known. The umpire was Ost, the barber, who appeared in a long blue frock-coat like Logic's, the Oxonian, in 'Tom and Jerry,' and who volunteered 'hout' to a fieldsman who stopped a bump-ball; and when remonstrated with by men of both sides remarked, 'Surely first "bounce" is "hout" at cricket and trap.' This occasioned a change of umpire. There were two very hard hitters, Charles Smart, a tall young fellow, son of a rich farmer, and 'Billy Wakley,' a very stout tall young farmer; there were many hits to the long-field off and on, which were well held; and Charles Watson, a promising lad of about sixteen, the butcher's son, who played for the first time in a man's match, immortalised himself by making a long catch close to the vicarage hedge. The batting mostly consisted of hard-hitting, and the catching was good. The booth was made up of rick-cloths strained over a standing skeleton woodwork frame; and on the right of it was a round table with six or eight armchairs placed on either side; a large brass square tobacco-box out of which those who sat round the privileged table could help themselves by putting a halfpenny into a slit which caused the box to open (on the same principle as the chocolate and sweet-stuff automatic pillars seen now at railway stations), kept company with a stack of clay-pipes. The arm-chairs were for the accommodation of the principal farmers and magnates of the parish who subscribed to the matches and who sat in state and smoked their pipes—as cigars were little known—and drank their grog out of rummers—large glasses which stood on one gouty leg each and held a shilling's worth of brandy and
