Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/18

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X
CRICKET

course, there is no historical interest about the cricket (vide p. 392). The one-legged and one-armed cricketers make a picture that is curious, though not very pleasant to contemplate; and the same is to be said of the rather vulgar representation of the ladies' cricket match noticed above. The "Ticket to see a Cricket Match" (vide p. 40) shows a bat of the most inordinate, and probably quite impossible, length; but we may easily suppose that the artist, consciously or unwittingly, has exaggerated the weapon of his day. Here too are two stumps only. We may notice the price of the ticket as somewhat remarkably high, 2s, 6d.; but it was in the days when matches were played for large sums of money, so perhaps all was in proportion (length of bat excepted, be it understood). There is a picture of the "celebrated Cricket Field near White Conduit House, 1787" (vide p. 17), which is named a "Representation of the Noble Game of Cricket." It is a picture of some merit, and evidently careful execution, and here too the players are seen with bats of a prodigious length; so it may be that these huge weapons came into fashion for a while, only to be abandoned again when their uselessness was proved, or perhaps when the legislature began to make exact provision with regard to the implements used. In this same picture of the "Noble Game of Cricket" a man may be seen standing at