the two classes of players; worse is it when such a one hints at such a thing as stand-offishness on the part of the amateurs. There are certain differences in the education and the social position of the two classes that makes the closer intimacy of the pavilion undesirable, and undesired also by both parties. At any rate, cricketers are perfectly capable of making all such arrangements for themselves, without the intrusion and interference of others. They have their own code and their own method, nor does there exist any analogy between the regulations, especially as to the amateur _status_, of cricket and of other games. Cricket stands on its own pedestal, and it is good that it should. [Illustration: _A CRICKET MATCH (about 1750)._] One of the troublous parts of cricket legislation has been the question of the residential qualification of cricketers for their counties, and the manner of defining what _bona fide_ residence is. It has been always recognised, I believe, that a man may play for the county in which he was born, or for the county in which he resides, though for “or” might have been written “and” as recently as 1873. Up to that date a man might, and many men did, play for two counties in one and the same season, under the two qualifications, while it was an understood thing that when those two counties met he represented the county of his birth. There were, however, obvious objections to this dual license, though they only first took shape in the form of proposed regulation in 1868. Five years later it was made law that a man who was doubly qualified must elect at the beginning of each season to play for one of these counties, and for no other. It was undoubtedly an abuse that such a state of things should exist, but it must have been a convenient source of revenue to a few professionals in the days when fees were low and matches few. But the accurate definition of _bona fide_ residence is still a difficulty: in some cases a man has taken a room, or a room has been taken for him, in the county for which he is desired to qualify, and he has, as occasion suited, occupied it for a night or two, while similar evasions or elastic interpretations of the law have existed; but the present solution of the question is probably the best one, _i.e._ to fall back on the patient and ever-willing committee of the M.C.C., which consents to adjudicate on all such questions as they arise. It should be added that proposals have been made several times, notably by Lord Harris in 1880, that the residential period should be reduced to one year; but though this reduction would have acted well in certain cases, especially in those of Colonial and army players who took up their residence in England, it has been held that objections outweigh the advantages, and the tale of years has not been reduced.