Early on Monday morning they began to arrive, about 6 o'clock, so as to set to work, and it was in vain that the porters refused them admission. Their tale was, that the lady who had hired them, had given them the key of the laundry to let themselves in, so that they might get to work, light the fire, &c. But, as there was no laundry at Buckingham Palace, they sent the poor women to St. James's Palace, where there was one, and, when they got there, it was only to be told that none had been engaged, nor even wanted. One can imagine the scene, more especially as many of the poor women had come from great distances, some had left good situations to go there, and others had sent their children into the Country to nurse, in order to enable them to take the place.
A more pleasing contest of women took place on the 3rd of October, 1811, in the shape of a Cricket Match between two teams, not the sort of thing as "Actresses" Cricket, which is now played between a team each of men and women, the former being armed with broom handles, the latter with cricket bats; but a much rougher sort of thing, if we can believe the accompanying illustration, which is taken from an etching of Rowlandson's, called "Rural Sports, or a Cricket Match Extraordinary. On Wednesday, Oct. 3, 1811, a Singular Cricket Match took place at Ball's Pond, Newington. The players on both sides were 22 Women, 11 Hampshire, against 11 Surrey. The Match was made between some amateur Noblemen of the respective Counties, for 500 Guineas a side. The performers in the Contest were of all ages and sizes."
The Match really began on the 2nd of October, and lasted three days, the Hampshire team winning. The ages varied from 14 to upwards of forty.
Rowlandson sketched with a freedom approaching decided coarseness—but his sketches were natural, and in this instance valuable, as showing us Cricket as then played, although the game, with its two stump wickets, curved bats, and primitive scoring was then obsolete, at least in matches.[8]
But, if we can believe the same artist, Baldwin and his congeners were outdone this year by a woman descending from a balloon in a parachute. It is taken from an etching by Rowlandson, dated the 25th of October, 1811, and entitled "Balloon Hunting." It represents the mishaps of a party of ladies who went balloon hunting across country, in a one-horse vehicle, the shafts of which are smashed, and the horse is being reduced to docility by the driver. I know of no woman who descended by means of a parachute, in this year.
They were not novelties, for André Jacques Garnerin, the Aëronaut, came down in one in 1802, and, according to Larousse, Elisa, daughter of Jean Baptiste Olivier Garnerin, brother of the above, was the first woman who tried a "drop from the clouds." She made her first descent in 1815, and in 1820 had made over twenty.
RURAL SPORTS; BALLOON HUNTING.
(By Rowlandson, published October 25, 1811, by Thomas Tegg.)