then going in and getting two runs, beat the two gentlemen by two wickets. Betting at starting, five to one against Mr. Trumper and his dog. The dog always stood near his master when he was bowling, and ran after the ball when struck, and returned with it in his mouth so quickly that the two gentlemen had great difficulty to run even from a long hit. The dog was a thorough-bred sheep dog."

Lord William Lennox tells of a curious match he witnessed early in the century between the one-armed and the one-legged pensioners of Greenwich Hospital. As with most matches then, it was for a heavy stake-a thousand guineas; "it took place at Montpelier Gardens, Walworth, and created much diversion, and several lost or broke their wooden walls." The one-armed players won; but on a more recent occasion, when a similar match was played at Kennington Oval, after some excellent play on both sides, the one-legged men won. They were more handy than their opponents in picking up the ball.

"The glorious uncertainty of cricket" has become proverbial: the finest teams have been dismissed many a time for less than a run apiece, but there seems to be only one instance on record of a good eleven being all out without a single run being scored. This was in a match in 1855 between Earl Winterton's Club and the Second Royal Surrey Militia, in which the military eleven did not break their "duck's egg," though they had some good bats among them who, in the next innings, scored a hundred. What made it more extraordinary was, that Challen, one of Lord Winterton's bowlers, was a fast bowler.

Fuller Pilch once bowled out eight of his antagonists for nothing, and the other three only made four runs between them. This was in a match, the Paltiswick Club against Bury, in 1824, and it is probably the second smallest score on record, though it is not nearly so wonderful as the score in one of the famous B. matches in 1810. On this occasion,

Mr. E. H. Budd was absent, and J. Wells was given to supply his place. Lord Frederick Beauclerk, Beldham, Bennett, the Bentleys, and the rest of the famous B.'s only made two runs between them, and the given man making four at one hit and then being put out, the eleven that had made 137 in their first innings thus only ran up six in their second.

Elevens made up of men bearing the same initial or the same name are common enough. A correspondent of Notes and Queries records among the novel matches of 1877 one played at Shalford, Surrey, between eleven Heaths and eleven Mitchells, which the Mitchells won. The victors had already vanquished eleven Miles and eleven Muggeridges, and the Surrey newspaper he quotes says they were about to challenge an eleven named Lucas.

The late Lord Lyttelton, with his two brothers and eight sons, played a famous match at Hagley against King Edward's School, Bromsgrove, in August, 1867, and won by ten wickets. Lord Lyttelton, in a humorous set of verses, proceeds to celebrate the victory, and—

Sing the song of Hagley cricket,

When the peer and all his clan
Grasped the bat to guard the wicket
As no other household can,

and so on, as the curious reader may find in the ninth volume of the fifth series of Notes and Queries.

On May 6, 1794, a match was played at Linsted Park between the Gentlemen of the Hill against the Gentlemen of the Dale, for a guinea a man, when all the players were on horseback. Sir Horace Mann got up a similar match, on ponies, at Harrietsham, in 1800.

In 1849 a game was played on the ice on Christchurch Meadow at Oxford; and during the long frost of the most severe winter of 1878-9, on several occasions immense crowds were attracted to witness similar matches, as at Grantchester

Meadows, in December, 1878; between the elevens of R. Carpenter and Mr. Riggs, at Shipley, in January; at Bushey, and elsewhere.

With the doings in India of the famous Parsee eleven and in New Zealand of the Maori players before us, it might appear that there is an end to the oft-repeated assertion that cricket is a game that can be appreciated only by the AngloSaxon; but this is perhaps only the proverbial exception, and we may still go on telling stories about the "benighted foreigner," like the anecdote Cuthbert Bede somewhere relates of Ibrahim Pasha's visit to Lord's during his visit to England. Among the efforts made to amuse the Pasha, he was taken to see a cricket-match at Lord's. After staring wearily for two hours at the strenuous exertions of picked players, he at length, in despair, sent a message to the captains of the elevens that he did not wish to hurry them, but that when they were tired of running about he would be much obliged to them if they would begin their game.

This same story has been told of the Duchesse de Berri, but that does not matter; the anecdote is but the Briton's belief that cricket flourishes only on beef and beer.

There never was a game like the old Scottish game,
That's played 'twixt the hole and the tee;
You may roam the world o'er, but the
Is the very best game you will see.

game at your door

FOR ages golf has been pre-eminently the national game of Scotland. As its history emerges from the mists of antiquity we find foot-ball and it linked together as representative games, in fulminations against "unprofitabill sportis," unduly distracting the attention of the people from more serious affairs. But our game far exceeds this old rival in interest; and if it were not for the popularity of curling in its season, no rival pastime could pretend to vie with golf in Scotland.

The mode of playing golf is so well known in these days, even to the ill-starred beings who dwell where Nature has not made "links," that it need only be said that the playing fields are extensive downs-Scotice, "links"-generally near the sea, with the surface diversified and made interesting to the skilful players by patches of gorse, sand-holes, "bunkers," and other "hazards." Victory lies with the player who, avoiding or skilfully overcoming these "hazards," drives his ball into a series of small, carefully-cut, round holes, in the fewest strokes. The clubs used are several in number; some designed to drive the small gutta-percha ball a long distance, others to extricate balls from "hazards" unfortunately fallen into, and others for the cautious and skilful short strokes that send a near-lying ball into the wished-for hole.

To those unfortunates who have only read of the pastime,

it may appear hard to believe in the reality of the enthusiasm shown by its votaries; but whenever they are privileged to come under its influence, even as spectators, they will find it is one of the most fascinating of pursuits. How can a man describe in fitting language the subtle spell that brings him out in all weathers and seasons, and makes him find perfect pleasure in "grinding round a barren stretch of ground, impelling a gutta-percha ball before him, striving to land it in a succession of small holes in fewer strokes than his companion and opponent," as the game has been described by one of the "Peter Bell" class of men, to whom the primrose by the river's brim is a yellow primrose and nothing more.

No space need be wasted on unprofitable speculations as to the origin of golf. All that is clear in this vexed subject is that though Scotland is the chosen home of the game, she is not its birthplace. It is, however, of little moment whether the game came in with the Scandinavians who settled on the east coast of Scotland, or whether it was brought northward, over the border, as a variety of the English "bandy-ball"; or even if we have to go back to the Campus Martius, and look for the parent of golf in the feather ball of the Roman paganica: or further back still, with those enthusiastic golfers who are quite prepared to hold that the old Greeks beguiled their weary wait by many a keen game on the "links of Troy." Games of ball seem to have existed in all ages, and it is therefore probable that golf is a development of some older game, or perhaps a "selection of the fittest" from several previously existing ball-games. It is sufficient for our purpose that early in the fifteenth century it was at least as popular with all classes in Scotland as it is to-day.

So all-engrossing was the game then that it became a cause of danger to the State; so much so that the Scottish king, James II., found himself constrained to pass a penal Act ordaining that the "fut ball and golf be utterly cryt doune, and nocht usyt," as their popularity seriously interfered with the