In those days there was a good deal of jollity in connection with the cricket in the playing fields, and the boys were allowed to do many things which would be thought very reprehensible to-day. Up to about 1827, for instance, a beer tent used to be allowed when cricket matches were played. Two or three years later Eton cricket for some reason or other admittedly deteriorated, a disastrous state of affairs which was thus explained by one of the “cads” who used to hover about the shooting fields: “Lord, sir, they never has won a match since the beer tent got the sack, and never will no more.” This tent, where “beer and baccy” were the order of the day before it gave offence to the higher powers, was kept, at every match, by the veteran Jem Miller for the accommodation of the “cads,” Broconalian Club, and other loungers, and loudly and lustily did they cheer the boys with their stentorian lungs. It was from this tent that one of the best bowlers and batters Eton ever produced--in after years a prominent divine at King’s--was encouraged by the deafening shouts of “Goo it, my dear Harding; goo it, my dear boy,” when he scored 86 runs off his own bat against Messrs. Ward, Vigne, Tanner, and others of the Epsom Club. It was on this memorable day, too, that he made a tremendous hit over the shooting-field trees, high in the air, of course, when a bargeman from the tent, lost in amazement at the hit, thundered out, “There she goes for Chessy [Chertsey] Church, by Jingo!” it being a prominent mark on the river for the bargees. [SN: “WATER BOILS,” “MAKE TEA”] According to all accounts, cricket in those less strenuous days was not taken any too seriously. Boys did not change their clothing to play it, though they did so for football. Once during a match in Upper Club a fight was reported to be going on in the playing fields, and in a few minutes gentlemen, spectators, and cricketers not actually playing scampered over Sheep’s Bridge, eager to witness the contest. Formerly tea in Upper Club was made by fags. The well-known cries of “Water boils!” “Make tea!” originated during this now obsolete state of affairs. Though all Bacchanalian gaiety had disappeared from the playing fields by the middle of the last century, a somewhat free-and-easy spirit still prevailed, and on the occasion of school matches there was usually a good deal of fun, especially when Billy Boland--a celebrated character and _bon vivant_ of the past, who was supposed to have been the original of Fred Bayham in Thackeray’s novel of _The Newcomes_--was present. He it was who once, after lunch during a cricket match between the school and I Zingari, presented Dr. Hawtrey, the then headmaster, with the Freedom of the Club in a deal box, and wound up a mock speech with the toast: “Floreat Etona et vivat ‘Nitidissimus’ Hawtrey!” This was peculiarly appropriate, for with his velvet-collared coat the Doctor was the smartest of men and wore the best-varnished boots in the world.