no time at all. Indeed, people have no notion of what the best of the old under-hand bowlers could do".
'This observation was confirmed by Mr. Ward, who said that the round-arm bowling was rendered necessary rather because the old under-hand bowlers were used up, and that there were many difficult bowlers he met in the counties who were not brought forward, and the old style ceased to have its fair chance. In confirmation of this view of the case, I must cite the case of William Clarke.
'The result of this meeting was that Fennex was hospitably appointed by Mr. Mitford to a sinecure office, created expressly in his honour, in the beautiful gardens of Benhall; and Pilch[1] and Box, and Bayley, and all his old acquaintance, will not be surprised to hear that the old man would carefully water and roll his little cricket-ground on summer mornings, and on wet and wintry days would sit in the chimney-corner, dealing over and over again by the hour, to an imaginary partner, a very dark and dingy pack of cards, and would then sally forth to teach a longremembered lesson to some hob-nailed frequenter of the village ale-house.'
Mr. Mitford's name does not occur in Lillywhite's Cricket Scores and Biographies, and I have no record of his proficiency in the field. But he could write of cricket with gusto, and he reverenced the past. He died in 1859, aged seventy-eight.
- ↑ Fennex claimed to have taught Fuller Pilch to bat.
