"'Bad men, good men, workers and idlers, all are there, and all at one in their keenness over the game. . . . Anything that puts very many different kinds of people on a common ground must promote sympathy and kindly feelings. The workman does not come away from seeing Middlesex beating Lancashire, or vice versa, with evil in his heart against the upper ten; nor the Mayfair _homme de plaisir_ with a feeling of contempt for the street-bred masses. Both alike are thinking how well Mold bowled, and how cleanly Stoddart despatched Briggs's high-tossed slow ball over the awning. Even that cynical _nil admirari_ lawyer--'" I pointed a finger at Verinder. "'Even that cynical _nil admirari_ lawyer caught himself cheering loudly when Sir Timothy planted Hallam's would-be yorker into the press-box. True, he caught himself being enthusiastic, and broke off at once--'" "When I found it hadn't killed a reporter," Verinder explained. "But I hope Ranjitsinhji has some better arguments than these if he wants to defend gladiatorial cricket. At least he allows that a change has come over the game of late years, and that this change has to be defended?" "Yes, he admits the change, and explains how it came about. In the beginning we had local club cricket pure and simple--the game of your Village Green, in fact. Out of this grew representative local cricket-- that is, district or county cricket which flourished along with local club cricket. Out of county cricket, which in those days was only local cricket glorified, sprang exhibition or spectacular or gladiatorial cricket, which lived side by side with, but distinct from, the other. Finally, exhibition and county cricket merged and became one. And that is where we are now." "Does he explain how exhibition and county cricket came, as he puts it, to be merged into one?" "Yes. The introduction of spectacular cricket (he says) changed the basis of county cricket considerably. For many years the exhibition elevens and the counties played side by side; but gradually the former died out, and the new elements they had introduced into the game were absorbed into county cricket. The process was gradual, but in the end complete. The old county clubs and the new ones that from time to time sprang up added the exhibition side of cricket to the old local basis. The county clubs were no longer merely glorified local clubs, but in addition business concerns. They provided popular amusement and good cricket; in fact, they became what they are now--local in name, and partly local in reality, but also run upon exhibition or spectacular lines."