Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/487

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VILLAGE CRICKET
363
Umpire £0 10 6
Dinner for ditto and scorer 0 8 0
Six Bell's Life papers 0 1 0
Stamps 0 1 0
Ball 0 6 6
£1 7 0

Four shillings apiece for the umpire's and scorer's "dinner" may seem expensive in these modern halfcrown days, but judging from the next entry, we can only consider it an exceptionally moderate occasion. On 21 St September of the same year, when, if we may judge by 1902, the summer was just beginning, the same entry reads:—

Dinner for ditto, scorer, and beer £0 11 0

Whether the extra 3s. represents the amount of liquid refreshment required by the umpire and scorer alone, or in conjunction with those acting in similar capacities on the other side, whose integrity they thus thought to drown, does not transpire from the account.

All these and many other like interesting matters are at the disposal of the gentleman who may still do for Kent cricket what Lord Alverstone and C. W. Alcock have done for Surrey in their Surrey Cricket, just published; but I must not break through my self-imposed rule and enlarge any further on these exploits of bygone days. Good old Kent! Where is the historian that shall do justice to your past glories? Or is it that the part is after all