Add to all these chances of war, the many balls which are flying at the same time at Lord’s and at the Universities, and other much frequented grounds, on a practising day. At Oxford you may see, any day in the summer, on Cowley Marsh, two rows of six wickets each facing each other, with a space of about sixty yards between each row, and ten yards between each wicket. Then, you have twelve bowlers, _dos à dos_, and as many hitters--making twelve balls and twenty-four men, all in danger’s way at once, besides bystanders. The most any one of these bowlers can do is to look out for the balls of his own set; whether hit or not by a ball from behind, is very much a matter of chance. A ball from the opposite row once touched my hair. The wonder is, that twelve balls should be flying in a small space nearly every day, yet I never heard of any man being hit in the face--a fact the more remarkable because there was usually free hitting with loose bowling. Pierce Egan records that, in 1830, in the Hyde Park Ground, Sheffield, nine double-wicket games were playing at once--TWO HUNDRED PLAYERS within six acres of grass! One day, at Lord’s, just before the match bell rung after dinner, I saw one of the hardest hitters in the M.C.C. actually trying how hard he could drive among the various clusters of sixpenny amateurs, every man thinking it fun, and no one dangerous. An elderly gentleman cannot stand a bruise so well--matter forms or bone exfoliates. But then, an elderly gentleman,--bearing an inverse ratio in all things to him who calls him “governor,”--is the most careful thing in nature; and as to young blood, it circulates too fast to be overtaken by half the ills that flesh is heir to. A well known Wykehamist player of R. Price’s standing, was lately playing as wicket-keeper, and seeing the batsman going to hit Off, ran almost to the place of a near Point; the hit, a tremendously hard one, glanced off from his forehead--he called out “Catch it,” and it was caught by bowler! He was not hurt--not even marked by the ball. Four was scored at Beckenham, 1850, by a hit that glanced off Point’s head; but the player suffered much in this instance. A spot under the window of the tavern at Lord’s was marked as the evidence of a famous hit by Mr. Budd, and when I played, Oxford _v._ Cambridge, in 1836, Charles, son of Lord F. Beauclerk, hitting above that spot elicited the observation from the old players. Beagley hit a ball from his Lordship over a bank 120 yards. Freemantle’s famous hit was 130 yards in the air. Freemantle’s bail was once hit up and fell back on the stump: Not out. A similar thing was witnessed by a friend on the Westminster Ground. “One hot day,” said Bayley, “I saw a new stump bowled out of the perpendicular, but the bail stuck in the groove from the melting of the varnish in the sun, and the batsman continued his innings.” I have seen Mr. Kirwan hit a bail thirty yards. A bail has flown forty yards.