I ought to add that these amounts represent only annual subscriptions and current expenses, and do not include special collections made for special purposes, such as enclosing the pitch in posts and chains, laying on the water, and so on. If a “round robin” is not sufficient to cover these extras, I generally find a good village concert in the winter is sufficient to wipe off any deficit. We have a minimum subscription for the villagers of 2s. 6d. a year, which is readily paid when they find it is a _sine qua non_; but the rule must be rigidly enforced, even to the exclusion of your best bowler, if he prove refractory! The amount collected in this way is of course trifling, yet without it I believe the club would very soon stop for want of members; for it is the experience of all who have many dealings with their village neighbours, that they do not value or take any interest in the thing which costs them nothing. Free education has been a sufficient curse to our villages without giving them free cricket too! The rest of our income is collected by the lamplighting, shoemaking, groundman and umpire, who goes round with a book to all the houses in the parish at what he considers the psychological moment, generally after dinner in the evening; for which extra labour he is accorded a commission of 1s. in the pound collected. The details of expenditure require no elucidation; they are the same in all cricket clubs; only the healthy countryman, with plenty of muscle, but no skill to apply it, will require at least twice as many bats every season as an ordinary cricketer. And mind you, they don’t go at the edges; they come right in half. Is it the stiff wrist? But when all is said and done, what fun it is! I have played most sorts of cricket—country-house cricket, club cricket, touring with my old school eleven, and so on, and once I even appeared for the county second eleven, when I was run out by a local tradesman before I had a ball; but none of them ever touched village cricket for pure, unadulterated amusement. My earliest recollection takes me back to a pretty little ground not far from Croydon, where a local schoolmaster enjoyed a great reputation as a demon underhand bowler. It was not so much the pace or the pitch that proved so disastrous to the batsmen, as the man himself. He _looked_ destructive from the moment he began his run, and as soon as the ball was delivered he used to ejaculate fiercely, “That’s got yer!” Whether such a remark at such a critical moment was entirely in accordance with the customs of the game, it never entered our heads to inquire; we only knew it generally had the desired effect.