We had expected to play our first game of ball in England on the day of our arrival, but the game had been called off before we got there because of the storm, the grounds being flooded. It was a lucky thing for us that such was the case, as there was not one of the party who could have hit a balloon after the experience of the night before, or who could have gone around the bases at a gait that would have been any faster than a walk.
[CHAPTER XXX. THROUGH ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.]
The first thing that impresses the stranger in London is the immensity of the city, and the great crowds that continually throng the streets night and day, for London never sleeps.
The first day after our arrival I noted numerous changes that had taken place in various quarters since my visit of fifteen years before, during which time the city seemed to have grown and spread out in every direction. The hotel where we were quartered was in close proximity to the Strand, one of London's greatest and busiest thoroughfares, and here the crowds were at all times of the most enormous proportions, the absence of street car and the presence of hundreds of hansom cabs and big double-decked tramways running in every direction being especially noticeable. The weather at the time of our visit was cold, foggy and disagreeable, and as a result our sight-seeing experiences were somewhat curtailed and not as pleasant as they might have been.
The date of our first appearance on English soil was March 12th, and prior to the game on that occasion we were given a reception and luncheon in the Club House of the Surrey County Cricket Club at Kensington Oval, which is the personal property of the Prince of Wales, and one of the most popular of the many cricket grounds the are to be found within the vicinity of the world's greatest metropolis. The committee appointed to receive the players on this occasion embraced among others the Duke of Beaufort, Earl of Landsborough, Earl of Coventry, Earl of Sheffield, Earl of Chesborough, Lord Oxenbridge, Lord Littleton, Lord Hawke, Sir Reginald Hanson, Bart., Sir W. T. Webster, Attorney General, the Lord Mayor, American Consul General, American Charge d'Affaires, and Dr. W. D. Grace, the world-famous cricket player, with whom I had become well acquainted during the trip of 1874. It had rained that morning and when we left the hotel in drags for the grounds the streets of London were enveloped in a fog so thick that one could almost cut it with a knife, while the prospects of a ball game seemed to the most of us exceedingly dubious. Arriving at the Club House we were presented to the different members of the reception committee, who, in spite of the high-sounding titles that they bore, were a most affable lot of men, and to many of the most prominent club members, all of whom gave us a warm welcome and made us feel thoroughly at home. Lord Oxenbridge, a fine specimen of the English nobility, acted as chairman of the assemblage, and after luncheon proposed the toasts of "The Queen" and "The President of the United States," both of which were drank with enthusiasm. Lord Lewisham then proposed "The American Ball Teams," to which Mr. Spalding responded, this being followed by the health of the chairman, proposed by the Hon. Henry White, United States Charge d'Affaires, after which we made our way through the crowds that thronged the reception rooms and corridors to the dressing rooms, where we donned our uniforms and put ourselves in readiness to play ball. When we marched out on the grounds we were somewhat surprised at the size of the crowd that greeted us, some 8,000 people having assembled to witness the game, and this in spite of the fact that it was still foggy and the grounds soft, black and sticky. To play good ball under such circumstances was all but impossible, and yet I have taken part in lots of championship games at home that were worse played than this one.
Healy and Baldwin did the twirling, and both pitched good ball, while the fielding of both teams was nothing short of remarkable when the fact is taken into consideration that a ball fifty feet in the air could not be seen at all. Just at the end of the first half of the third inning we noticed something of a commotion in the vicinity of the Club House and when, in a few moments afterwards, the well-known face of the Prince of Wales appeared at the window, we assembled at the home plate and gave three hearty cheers for His Highness, this action on our parts bringing out a storm, of applause from the stand. At the close of the fifth inning we accompanied Manager Lynch to the Club House at the Prince's request, where we were introduced to the future King of England by President Spalding, he shaking hands with each of us in a most cordial manner, calling many of us by name and chatting with us in a most off-hand and friendly way. As we left he bowed to each of us pleasantly and then took a seat by the window to witness the balance of the game, which resulted at the end of nine innings in a score of 7 to 4 in Chicago's favor. The London papers the next morning devoted a great deal of space to the game, but the majority of the Englishmen who had witnessed it said that they thought cricket its superior, and among them the Prince of Wales, which was hardly to be wondered at, and which confirmed me in the opinion that I had formed on my first visit, viz., that base-ball would never become a popular English sport, an opinion that since then has proved to be correct.
Accompanied by the United States Charge d'Affaires the next morning we drove to the Parliament Buildings, where we were admitted and shown through by the Secretary to the Chairman of the House of Commons, an honor rarely accorded to visitors and one that we greatly appreciated.
From the great hall where Charles the First and Warren Hastings were tried and which had been badly wrecked by the explosion of a dynamite bomb two years before, we passed into the Crypt and Committee rooms, and thence through the magnificent corridors decorated with paintings, each of which cost thousands of pounds. The House of Lords was next visited, the Woolsack and Queen's Seat, and the seats of the various members being pointed out to us by the Secretary. From the House of Lords we passed into the House of Commons, where Sir William Harcourt was speaking upon "The Treatment of Political Prisoners in Ireland," and where several famous personages were pointed out to us, though much to our regret we missed seeing Mr. Gladstone, who was expected to enter every moment, but who did not appear up to the time of our leaving for Westminster Abbey, where we had just time to glance about us before driving to Lord's Cricket Grounds, where we were to play that afternoon, and where we were greeted by a crowd of 7,000 people. These grounds, which are particularly fine, we found that afternoon in excellent condition and as a result we played a great game and one that evidently pleased the spectators, the batting being heavy, the fielding sharp and quick and the base running fast and brilliant. Errors at the' last moment by Baldwin and myself gave the All-Americas this game, they winning by a single run, the score standing 7 to 6.
That evening, at the invitation of Henry Irving, now Sir Henry, and Miss Ellen Terry, we occupied boxes at the Lyceum Theater, being invited back of the scenes between the acts to enjoy a glass of wine and to receive the well wishes of our host and hostess, who still stand at the head of their profession.