In batting it is very different. Mr. Grace, of course, must be left out of any calculation. Apart from him, however, the amateurs can quite hold their own in batting. It is not fair to take as an illustration the performances of each in Gentlemen _v._ Players matches, because the bowling on one side is so superior to the other. But in international test matches, both here and in Australia, Messrs. Stoddart, Ranjitsinhji, Maclaren, Jackson, and Steel have been fully as good and successful as Shrewsbury, Barnes, Gunn, Hayward, and Tyldesley. As far as style is concerned, the older professionals, such as Shrewsbury and Barnes, had a more distinctive difference of method than their modern successors. Hayward and Tyldesley far more closely resembled the amateur method of Messrs. Jackson and Palairet than Shrewsbury and Barnes did that of Messrs. Steel and Stoddart. It is not easy to explain on paper the difference, but every decent judge of the game could see that a difference was there. Some of the players, like Ulyett and Bates, could and did hit as hard and as often as the amateur, but in the professional there was little real grace of style. It is strange that this is so, for grace and ease are qualities that must be born, not made, but it is true, nevertheless, speaking of the older cricketers. Nowadays it would seem that Tyldesley and Hayward have nothing to fear, as far as style is concerned, from any amateur, always excepting Mr. Palairet. As far as mere run-getting is the point of discussion, there would seem to be very little in it one way or the other. In the great series of test matches, both here and in Australia, during the last ten years there have been Stoddart, Maclaren, Ranjitsinhji, and Jackson, as there have been Shrewsbury, Hayward, Tyldesley, and Gunn, the amateurs perhaps having a shade the better of it. The fielding also is and always has been tolerably even. In this, however, there is a great difference now as compared with old times. Thirty years ago the professional wicket-keeper was a class, even two classes, above the amateur. Lockyer, Pooley, Plumb, and Pinder formed a class that the amateurs could not show any comparison with. Possibly the rougher wicket and the, generally speaking, faster bowling made the position more unpleasant than it is now, but undoubtedly the amateur has improved beyond all knowledge in wicket-keeping, and there is not much to choose now. In other respects also the quality seems tolerably equal. The observer will undoubtedly notice a change in the figure of the ordinary professional now. The old Yorkshire eleven, with the well-known figures of Roger Iddison, Luke Greenwood, and Rowbotham, and the Nottingham eleven with Bignall and Wild, seem quite out of date now, though Hirst looks promising in this respect. But Gunn, Maurice Read, Tyldesley, Wainwright, Hirst, Braund, and several others were and are fully equal in fielding to any that the amateurs can bring to compare with them.