"That will Shut out Many, and Make the Thing Select."

SIT down in your saddle, be determined, drop your hands, so as not to interfere with your horse's stride, and if he is like the one in the picture before you, he will soon put you at your ease on the other side. Perhaps it would have been better had that hat been crammed on the head a few strides sooner, for both hands are wanted now on the horse's withers, and the fashion of raising one hand has long ago exploded. That paled fence with the low rail and ditch to you, would thin many a field nowadays, and old Henry Alken never drew anything more lifelike and dashing in a Leicestershire run than this picture. Cannot you imagine, readers, that this was the boundary fence of Croxton Park in those days of Squire Osbaldeston?

This is a line engraving, and marks a new departure in the art. I hardly know to which to give the greatest credit, the artist or the engraver, for Mr. J. B. Pratt has done his part of the work so well, and yet what a master of his art Alken was! And where is his equal in these degenerate days? We are sadly behind the first half of the century in sporting artists and animal painters. Alken so thoroughly understood his work-a consummate sportsman himself. In every variety of scene you find him always at home, and never hackneyed or vulgar. He was the true depicter of sporting life, with only the faintest touch here and there of caricature, never overdone and always true to the point. What would Nimrod's books have been without Alken? And what would Mr. Vyner's work, "Notitia Venatica," have been without his lifelike illustrations? How often from my boyhood have I gloated over that scene, "My First Brush!"

His pictures of "The Quorn Hunt," "Hunting Qualifications," "My Stud," "The Grand Leicestershire Steeplechase," The Right and the Wrong Sort;" his "Humorous Sporting Anecdotes," including "The Sporting Sweep," and a host of others too numerous to mention, have endeared Alken to the British sportsman as no other sporting artist has ever been before or since. He flourished chiefly between 1835 and 1850, and was never sparing of his pencil or paint-brush. As is too often the case, he did not realise while living the recompense that was his due. Now that he has gone from us his works fetch their real worth, and happy is the man whose smoking room or hall is well adorned with Alken's original pictures, among which the happy idea of his, thus engraved by Pratt, should never be forgotten by those whose ambition it is to do and dare. BORDERER.

VOL. LIII.-No. 359.

C

66

Cricketers in Council.

THE recent meeting of the Cricket Council-that juvenile and highly interesting protégé of Lord Harris-proved to be one of the most important yet held; and several subjects of the greatest interest were discussed at it, and legislation for them was carried through. Mr. Webbe's most reasonable proposition, that the old hour of 11.30 should be returned to for commencing play on the second and third days of matches, would, we have no doubt, have been carried easily by a meeting composed of practical cricketers. The leaven, however, of pavilion cricketers who were present amended the motion to not later than 11.30"; and so the matter stands. If the old school of pavilion critics-who play so well from, and display such staying powers in, the pavilion seats-had their own way, many a keen cricketer would soon be worked to death, for he would be called on to play eight hours a day, with every minute of the luncheon interval jealously counted, and with all hits to be run out. We would remind these same critics that their frantic exertions in their annual or monthly big match-for first-class fixtures were formerly few and far between-and the distances they used to travel before breakfast to get to the ground by ten o'clock, might not have suited their constitutions quite so well if they had been playing in similar matches nearly every day of the season, as is the case with a great number of the prominent cricketers of to-day.

For some years now, not a few county secretaries have regarded the Derbyshire county ground somewhat in the light of an auction mart or bazaar, wherein goods are displayed, and for which purchasers are invited. Undoubtedly some good bargains have been picked up in it by enterprising neighbours; but the recent defection to Warwickshire of one of their best bowlers has stung the much-enduring Derbyshire executive to action. Mr. Smith, as their representative, in proposing that no professional should play for another county whilst his own had need of him, made a pathetic appeal to the other delegates; his motion was, however, shown by Lord Harris to be impracticable, as interfering too much with freedom of contract and the liberty of the subject. Although Mr. Smith did not get his motion accepted, he must have the satisfaction of feeling that no more of his men are likely to be kidnapped, for from the chorus of virtuous indignation and pious horror that arose from the assembled delegates, it was clearly shown that no one of them ever would, or could, himself resort to such mean and ungenerous practices.

The vexed question of the classification of counties provided

an interesting debate; and the assembly admitted that the younger counties had been hardly used. It was also agreed that the time had now come to put things straight, and to relieve the press from the responsibility of which they have of late so bitterly complained. Still, we do not quite see what the committee of six counties-who were appointed to formulate a scheme-will be able to do, and we look with great interest to the outcome of their deliberations. Another thing we should like to see is the inclusion in the first-class averages of all the matches in which any first-class county takes part, e.g., Lancashire v. Warwickshire and Surrey v. Essex.

At the meeting of county secretaries, besides the arrangement of a card of thirty-three matches for the Australians, something else was settled for their benefit. This was that umpires for their matches shall be appointed in the same way as is done for inter-county matches. At the request of Mr. Perkins, those various elevens of England that from time to time bite the dust in the provinces are to perform under more qualified titles, e.g., "July 3, Staffordshire's England Eleven v. Australians." We understand the counties have mutually agreed, in gauging the season's results, to ignore drawn games. The relative position of counties can thus be found by subtracting the losses of each county from its wins, and comparing the balance with that of other counties. Now that there is a hard and fast rule by which to adjudge the socalled championship, those keen and mathematical-minded partisans, who of late years have blossomed forth in the September pages of the sporting papers with clear and positive proof that each man's pet county is champion, will be able, with an easy conscience, to economise a vast amount of time, ink, and ingenuity.

A Night with the Eels.

"HAVE you ever done any eel-spearing?" asked a friend with whom I was spending, in the North of England, a week of glorious August. I had not, and the proposition seemed very attractive. "You see," he went on, "the river is very low just now, and I should like to destroy all the eels I can, for they make sad havoc with the young trout. So suppose we make a start after dinner." I readily agreed. After a light meal we got into old clothes; and, armed with long tridents, made our way to the river-side. There is a wonderful fascination about water at night. It was already dark, the mist was up, and, from time to time, the melancholy cry of the plover mingled with the soft mutterings of the stream. I felt cold and awed. "It

"Oh

won't be pleasant when we are in," I half exclaimed. yes, you'll find it beautiful," replied my host. "There is nothing warms one like walking in cold water." I hoped this doctrine might be true. Anyhow it was too late to retract, so in I stepped. "Wait a minute," came from the bank. "Let the man with the torch get into the middle, or we shall be stepping into holes." The torch was soon lighted, a rough and ready kind of torch, consisting of some tow saturated with oil, on the end of a stout pole. Then we took our places, one on each side of the torch-bearer, with an attendant behind with a pair of tongs, the use of which I was presently to learn. I think I never was so surprised in my life. The bed of the stream was shown vividly in the strong light, and where in the daytime not a minnow could be seen, there they were, swimming all about, great leviathans of trout. How happy could I be with one of them, thought I, at the end of a light fly cast!

Now I understood how deadly is the poacher's art of fishspearing. It is not that the fish come up attracted by the light, but because you can see plainly everything in the water all round you. The fish are feeding, and swim lazily about. I am sure we could have got twenty or thirty out of the first pool had we felt poachingly inclined. Halloa! there goes an eel! Bang went my spear, and fastened firmly between two stones about three feet behind him! "You must shoot well in front, sir," remarked the man with the torch. Thus cautioned, I proceeded on; we were now just getting into the tail of the pool, and I was thinking that it looked a very likely place, when "Look! there he goes, in front," and a large eel darted out from under my feet, and dashed up the pool. I bounded after him; but was, of course, too late, My friend had meanwhile secured three nice ones. There he goes again! and this time I am successful; a white glitter is seen below the water. I have transfixed my eel through the back, and as he struggles he turns up his white belly to the light. "Hold him down till the man comes!" shouts my host. And precious hard work it is. Lord! how strong those beggars are! Every moment I fear my wrist will keep firm no longer; for he fights hard, and the running stream aids his efforts. At last my deliverer appears; and, catching the eel firmly by the neck, lifts the wriggling beauty into the sack. And so we go on from pool to pool, till at last we are tired out and getting rather cold. Thoughts of hot whisky and water and a bed rise to my brain and will not be denied. "Well, we have got four dozen fine fellows in about two hours," said my friend, "so we have earned our rest."

"Certainly," said I, as we hurried home, wet and exulting. "I would put a good day with the hounds and a fine grouse drive first and second, but I think-for excitement-this will run third." And I think so still.