ETON V. HARROW

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22769, 22 July 1939, Page 20

ETON V. HARROW

TO THE EDITOR OT THE PRESS. Sir, —In your issue of July 17 I noted a most extraordinary termination of this year’s match—very indecorous on the part of Eton. I have attended these matches at Lord’s in 1876, 1912, and 1927. They are long decorous functions, the supreme outdoor event in July each year. All the elite of England are there —fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers. I last went there with the late Mr C. C. Corfe, of Christchurch, in 1927. No one enters the ground under, payment of 3s—to keep out the profanum vulgus. The match itself ended in a draw after a dull, uninteresting game on a dead wicket. But the dresses and parasols—what a wealth of bright colour and fashion, and the little boys, in Eton jackets, miniature top hats, all wearing light or dark blue favours and swishing silver or gold-mounted canes, proudly bctsSoclcda At breaks in the game the ground is paraded. Then we get colour schemes at their best, coupled with the frou-frou of beautifully dressed women and girls. In earlier days fours-in-hahd, and waggonettes brought these scions of nobility to Lord’s. Now. costly motor-cars. They lunch in marquees at the northern end of the ground—making up special parties, with great reunions. Champagne all day runs freely—too freely Apparently on this occasion for old Etonians. The story seems to have brought great disgrace to the Old School tie. Let us hope that it has been exaggerated and that we may take it cum grano salis; and, further, that it will pass into the category of “Haec non olim meminisse juvabit.”—Yours, etc., SENEX. July IS, 1939.