The lack of prose literature dealing with cricket is, however, as surprising as it is deplorable. For a hundred years ago the game must have been able to supply an intriguing background for a novel. Lord’s was like Paddington recreation-ground, and, when there was no match, the public were allowed to hire a pitch there for a shilling, a sum that included the use of stumps, bat, and ball; there were no mowing machines then, and the grass was kept down by a flock of sheep, which was penned up on match days. On Saturdays, four or five hundred sheep were driven on to the ground on their way to the Smithfield Market. And then half a dozen small boys would run out and pick out any long grass or thick tufts that were still left. It is not surprising that there were shooters then. And never since the days of the gladiators can there have been such wholesale bribery and corruption as there was in the days of Lord Frederic Beauclerk. Enormous bets were made. Matches were played for stakes of one thousand guineas a side--in those days no small sum, and professionals found it hard to live on their pay; indeed, they made little effort to; and in big matches where a lot of money was at stake it was not uncommon to find one side trying to get themselves out while their opponents were trying to give them easy balls to make runs off. Indeed Lord Harris tells a story of how two professionals had a dispute at one of the annual general meetings at Lord’s, and in the presence of the noble lords of the M.C.C. such questions as “Who sold the match at Nottingham?” and “Who would bowl at anything but the wicket for Kent?” were bandied about to the consternation, Lord Harris says, “of some of those present who had lost their money contrary to all calculation on the matches referred to”! There were few newspaper reporters then, and things could be done at Old Trafford news of which would come tardily to Lord’s. The only persons who appear to have remained incorruptible during these early days are, strangely enough, the umpires. Perhaps they put too high a premium on their honesty, and the bookmakers found it cheaper to have dealings with the players, or perhaps there was a general conspiracy of silence, no one being sufficiently without blame to cast a stone. At any rate, the interpreters of the law seem to have given satisfaction, and they can have had no easy time. For it was during these years that the code of rules under which we play to-day was compiled. And it was compiled in a most haphazard fashion. No committee sat over a table and weighed every possible contingency and interpretation of the laws. The authorities were worthy fellows, but lazy and unimaginative. They drew up a rough code and waited for things to happen. If any particular practice began to cause a nuisance they were prepared to put a stop to it. In the meantime let the wheel turn.