except at such a slow pace that the batsman, if he is fool enough, may even play back at a half volley; whilst there is very seldom any good length ball of this character. A good lob bowler, on the other hand, bowled good length leg-breaks, and it seems to me, if Mr. Steel's argument is sound, that it would be such lob bowlers that the new rule of l.b.w. would unduly favour. But I can call to mind the days of V. E. Walker, Goodrich, William Rose, O. Mordaunt, A. W. Ridley, and Tinley, and I do not believe that in playing these bowlers good bats used to stop the ball with their legs, though the rule was the same then as it is now; and if they did not, why should present-day batsmen? and if they do, why should they not be given out? In 1884, on a well-known occasion, Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, "spes ultima Teucri," got three or four Australian wickets with lobs, which the bowler himself, in his most sanguine moments, would not have called higher than second-rate. One of the wickets was l.b.w., and doubts were expressed whether the batsman was properly given out. Mr. I. D. Walker was talking to McDonnell—both, alas, are now dead—and said that if a batsman allowed a lob to hit
