Having thus given vent to a growl on an unpleasant subject, the features of professional and amateur play may now be discussed. There used to be great differences in old days, far more than there is now, but in one respect there is a great difference still, and that is in bowling. We all know what sort of bowling will be seen in a University match, or in Free Forester and Quidnunc matches. There will be one or two fair slow bowlers, but that is all. Good fast bowling has not been seen for some years in amateur elevens, but for this the amateurs are hardly to blame. The modern wicket, shaved and heavy rolled, has made it practically impossible for any really fast bowler to do any good, unless he is one of the shining lights, like Richardson or Lockwood. Amateurs like Messrs. Jessop, Kortright, and Bradley have an occasional day of success, but these bowlers, being naturally fast, depend mainly for their success on the agility of the field in the slips, and on their capacity to make the ball bump. To attain this they generally have but a short career. They take out of themselves by adopting a gigantic long run and banging the ball down from straight over their head at a terrific pace. Flesh and blood cannot stand this for more than a short time. A human being is but human after all; he is not a machine built to order like a steam engine, and work like what he has to undergo knocks him up. The professionals have always had much the best of it as regards bowling, and they have so still; but why this is so is not easy to see. Between the ages of twelve and eighteen there is no reason to suppose that the professional practises more at bowling than the amateur; the probability is the other way. A young amateur is at school during this period, where cricket is more systematically carried on than at the board school, which the professional leaves at thirteen and exchanges for a shop or a factory. But the tendency in amateur bowlers is to promise well as a boy, and not to come up to expectations as a man, and especially is this the case when, as so often happens, there is a corresponding improvement in batting.