It was stated above that Cricket was not known in the playground of the District Grammar School, except possibly under the mildest of forms. Nevertheless, one, afterwards greatly distinguished in the local annals of Cricket, was long a master in the School. Mr. George Antony Barber accompanied Dr. Phillips to York in 1825, as his principal assistant, and continued to be associated with him in that capacity. Nearly half a century later than 1826, when Cricket had now become a social institution throughout Western Canada, Mr. Barber, who had been among the first to give enthusiastic encouragement to the manly English game, was the highest living local authority on the subject, and still an occasional participator in the sport. We here close our notice of the Old Blue School at York. In many a brain, from time to time, the mention of its name has exercised a spell like that of Wendell Holmes's _Mare Rubrum_; as potent as that was, to summon up memories and shapes from the Red Sea of the Past-- "Where clad in burning robes are laid Life's blossomed joys untimely shed, And where those cherish'd forms are laid We miss awhile, and call them dead." The building itself has been shifted bodily from its original position to the south-east corner of Stanley and Jarvis Street. It, the centre of so many associations, is degraded now into being a depot for "General Stock;" in other words, a receptacle for Rags and Old Iron. The six acres of play-ground are thickly built over. A thoroughfare of ill-repute traverses it from west to east. This street was at first called March Street; and under that appellation acquired an evil report. It was hoped that a nobler designation would perhaps elevate the character of the place, as the name "Milton Street" had helped to do for the ignoble Grub Street in London. But the purlieus of the neighbourhood continue, unhappily, to be the Alsatia of the town. The filling up of the old breezy field with dwellings, for the most part of a wretched class, has driven "the schoolmaster" away from the region. His return to the locality, in some good missionary sense, is much to be wished; and after a time, will probably be an accomplished fact. [Since these lines were written, the old District Grammar School building has wholly vanished. It will be consolatory to know that, escaping destruction by fire, it was deliberately dismantled and taken to pieces; and, at once, walls of substantial brick overspread the whole of the space which it had occupied.] [Illustration] [Illustration] XII. KING STREET FROM CHURCH STREET TO GEORGE STREET. We were arrested in our progress on King Street by St. James' Church. Its associations, and those of the District Grammar School and its play-ground to the north, have detained us long. We now return to the point reached when our recollections compelled us to digress.