the accounts of this very same year that we tumble on a dark and significant observation. "About this time," said Beldham to Mr. Pycroft, "we played the Coronation match, M.C.C. against the Players of England. We scored 278 and only six wickets down, when the game was given up. I was hurt, and could not run my notches; still James Bland and the other Legs begged of me to take pains, for it was no sporting match, 'any odds and no takers,' and they wanted to shame the gentlemen against wasting their—the Legs'—time in the same way another time."
"James Bland and the other Legs." At this distance of time we may perhaps repeat the epithet or nickname, and even class a named man under it, without the risk of an action for libel. Perhaps even the term "Legs" did not imply all the qualities which attach to it to-day, but in any case it is surely something of a shock to come on the presence of these questionable gentlemen just casually stated, not with any note of surprise, but merely as if they were a common and even essential accompaniment of a cricket match.
Of course we knew quite well that our forefathers betted large stakes between themselves, often on single-wicket matches. This was a favourite style of match with Mr. Osbaldeston—the Squire,—because his bowling was so fast that no one, practically, could hit it in front of the wicket, and hits did not count for runs, in single-wicket, behind the wicket. In double-wicket matches he often "beat his side," we
