It is a nice question whether we owe more to the pink pill or to the Yellow Press. But there can be no doubt as to the influence of the new journalism on sport and pastime. Until then, in _Punch's_ phrase, "cricket was still a childish game and not a penman's serious study." Henceforth the cricketer fulfilled a double function. He not only played cricket but he wrote about it--and himself. Under the heading "The Cricketer on the Hearth," in 1899, _Punch_ publishes an imaginary interview _à la mode_ with Mr. Slogger. We omit the complacent autobiographical passages and content ourselves with the sequel:-- "Well, that's pretty well all, I think, except you'll probably want to print at length my opinions on the Transvaal Question, Wagner's Music, and the Future of Agriculture. These will have an overpowering interest for your readers." "Here are a few photographs of myself--but it's rather too heavy a parcel to carry. I'll send it round in a van. Of course you'll print them all. And now I must ask you to excuse me, as it's time to get into flannels." I thanked him for his courtesy, and hoped that he'd make a fine score in the county match. He stared at me in surprise. "County Match? You don't imagine I've time to play cricket nowadays, do you? No; I'm going to change because half-a-dozen photographers will be here directly, and they like to take me in costume. And after that I shall have to see seven or eight more interviewers. Good morning!" [Sidenote: _The Cricket Journalist_] The intrusion of the emotional literary "note" in articles on pastime came later, and is parodied in the article (in 1904) "Do we take our amusements seriously enough?" by Mr. C. B. F:-- The frivolity of the Press is only paralleled by the frivolity of the public. Take the light and airy way in which the spectators at our great cricket grounds treat the imposing functions provided for them. Suppose little (but heroic) Johnny Tyldesley runs out to that wily, curling ball which sunny-faced Wilfred Rhodes pitches thirty-three and three-quarter inches from the block. Up glides his trusty willow, and a fortieth of a second after the ball has pitched descends on the leather. With a wonderful flick of the elbow he chops the ball exactly between square leg and point. Is the raucous "Well hit, Johnny," of the crowd a fitting, a reverent salutation? Our Elizabethan dramatists knew better. Have you not noticed in their stage directions, "A solemn music"? Two or three phrases of Chopin played, let us say, on the French horn by the doyen of the Press-box would be a better tribute to such a miracle of skill. There are, however, elements of better things in our crowds. Before now I have seen the potent Jessop smite a rising ball to the boundary with all the concentrated energy of his Atlantean shoulders, and as the ball reached the ring the spectators with involuntary reverence prostrated themselves before it.