THE SNOBBERY OF THE CRICKET FIELD.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1697, 12 January 1874, Page 4

THE SNOBBERY OF THE CRICKET FIELD.

The Melbourne, correspondent of the Okigo Daily Times writes :— Of all the 'snobbery which lias come under my knowledge in this snobberyloving' community, 1 think this of the All England Eleven excels all the others. The Eleven (or rather twelve) consists of five who are called "gentlemen," and seven who are .called " professionals." The line of distinction is made broad and distinct. The gentlemen come oat in the first-class, the professionals — low fellows in the second., , On arriving, the gentlemen take up their' quarters at a first-class hotel but one of the lower order in Bourke street is thought good, enough for thdprofessionals. But it may be snid, after all, some difference .must be made between gentlemen who play cricket, and come so far merely to play it for sport-, and in the exercise of a noble emulation', > and mci. who get their living by it, and; are paid to come here. Paid, qnotha ! The head of the gentlemen and of the whole teatri^ is MrW.'-Gl Grace/and he, before coming, bargained for LI2OO in advance. The other gentlemen stipulated fot from L3OO to L4OO each, and the poor professionals get about LIOO. There never was a harder bargain than that made by the gentlemen who'arranged the match. Everything was provided for, and even the profit to be derived from selling their photographs has been taken into calculation. But the persons who got up the speculation :of;j bringing y these genteel cricketers here to make as much as they could out of the transaction— well, they are gentlemen, too/, i The other day, one of them, making a reply to a toast at a little luncheon )f welcome given by the Mayor of Melbourne to the' team, had the effrontery to say that although the first object r with which they were brought ont wasjtb "improve the style ! of ' cricket hereT^yet* it was hoped that the undertaking would notbe unreaiqnerative. And so this miserable cant and snobbery go on about what of/ course is a business trans^ action from first to last to every one concerned in it. The only men in Ibe affair who seenrlo-me to occupy a really respectable position ' are these /professionals, upon witotii the: superfine "gents "'look down with sueh 1 scorn.' ; They play- for what they can^eam. by, it, j it is. their means of living, and there is rib pretence of anything else. ;But#s to those, lavishly paid " gents," really the airs of cricketing knight-errantry which they give themselVes are simply absurd. There seem the elements of a good row and rupture about that business before it |is all over, and I for one should not 'be i inconsolable if such &' denouement ' were to occur. Bu t it ia astonishing how all this low vulgar parade and pretence pi gentility, which consis! s in being paid twice or three times as much as those- who, openly live by the calling of cricket, suits this humbug-loving society of VicferiaV-