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CHAPTER XII.
GAMES AND SPORTS.
Early Cricket at East-Bourne.Cricket at Brighton.Cricket at East-Bourne in the " Sixties."Cricket at Compton Place.Curious Coincidences on a P. and 0. Steamer.Origin of the Devonshire Park.Stool-Ball. Point-to-Point Races.Races at Beachy Head.Eox Hounds.Harriers. First Regatta. Pedestrian Feat. Golf." Spelling-Bees." " Living Chess."" Book-Teas."
M ^mounting eleven fyt f:iit|r l|*g frao ht Icitnis." {King Henry VIII.) u Qtbtt sttk for arausjemnit, but bt alfoajjs rraojr to he antusfo,"(Ruskin.)
"WtftlfrmifamH
8$g Iromtos foill ttOM fyt totlkin ansto^r tym, gmfr fctr^r shrill echoes from tip JjoIIofo rartjr."
{Taming the Shrew.}
T
HE earliest East-Bourne Cricket Club that I ever heard of was founded, I believe, in 1837. Whether that club was in existence in 1849 I do not know, but that was the year of the first cricket match which I remember. The play took place in the large field now belonging to Temple Grove School at the Old Town. There was nothing in the shape of a pavilion or shed there, and the beer barrels, deemed indispensable in those days, stood in the open, and were so drawn from.
As quite a small boy I never took to cricket, and it was with the young Thomases at Ratton on July 19, 1854, that my cricket life really began. Football was little heard of; I only find one mention of it in my diaries 18541856. Hockey was our winter game. My interest in cricket was chiefly the result of being at school at Brighton for the three years just mentioned, where I had great opportunities not only of playing the game, but of seeing it played. My Headmaster, the Rev. J. W. Cary, was an Oxford D.D., and had been Headmaster of the Lewes Grammar School, and it was through |
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