These old players on instruments were nearly always found in the Church or Chapel Choirs. Thus in the early years of the century John Warren performed the double duty of bass-viol player and parish clerk at the Royston Church, and later on a rather full band of instruments led the service. A similar, but less organized state of things was found in some village Churches. It was the time when the wooden pitch-pipe was in its full glory. This was a square wooden implement, with a scale on one of its sides, upon which the leader blew the key-note, and then running up the octave with his voice--off they went to the tune of some old Calcutta, Cardiff, or other piece of arduous fugal work! The disappearance of these old village choirs, in which the village blacksmith, the baker, the tailor, and other natives played on the clarionet, bass-viol, bassoon, flute, trombone, and all kinds of instruments, while other grown-up men took their "parts" in those wonderful old fugues that seemed to make the song of praise without end--the absence of all this means a certain loss of that passion for music which has never been thoroughly recovered! We have many more players and singers now than in the past, but not, perhaps, the same proportion of lovers of music for its own sake. {130} CHAPTER XIII. SPORTS AND PASTIMES--CRICKET, HUNTING, RACING, AND PRIZE-FIGHTING--THE BUTCHER AND THE BARONET, AND OTHER CHAMPIONS. Among winter recreations skating was hardly known, and not at all as an amusement for ladies, but then what a glorious pastime was that of sliding! Very few young people can slide on the ice now as the boy in 1800-20 could do. In summer cricket was played, but, as in all the multiplied facilities for acquiring skill and knowledge, to-day the youthful cricketers have the best of tools, while their grandfathers had a home-made bat, or even a pale, and as for stumps, they generally grew in the neighbouring hedge till wanted, and the scoring book, in the form of a notched stick, came from the same quarter! But even at that time some "grand matches" sometimes came off, and nearly always for high stakes, as the following notice will show. The earliest announcement of a grand match in this district, I have met with, is the following for the year 1771-- "Tuesday, se'n night, a match at Cricket was played between the gentlemen of Saffron Walden and Stanstead Abbots, for 44 guineas, when the latter were bungle beat, that is, 51 notches in one innings." What is the precise meaning which the old chronicler meant to attach to the phrase "bungle beat" in this instance, I must leave to lovers of the game to determine for themselves. But it was customary to play for much higher stakes than the above. Thus, in the memorable year of scarcity of 1801 when people were longing for the deliverance of harvest--