Reginald Wynford.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] How the revenues of the duchy of Cornwall have grown under the admirable management instituted by the late prince-consort, who discovered that peculation and negligence were combining to dissipate his eldest son's splendid heritage, the following will show. In 1824 the gross revenue had fallen to £22,000: in 1872 it was nearly £70,000! Loud were the howls of the peculators against "that beastly German" when His Royal Highness took it in hand. But "he knew he was right," and had his reward. When the prince of Wales came of age, instead of having from £13,000 to £14,000, net, a year from his duchy, as the last prince of Wales had, there was a revenue of £50,000 a year clear, and cash enough to buy Sandringham. The income is now increasing at the rate of about £3000 a year, on the average. By net revenue is meant the clear sum which goes into the prince's pocket. Of course his father's prudence and energy saved the country a large sum, which it would otherwise have been compelled to vote for maintaining the prince's establishment.
George IV. had on his marriage, when prince of Wales, £125,000 a year, besides his duchy revenues, £28,000 for jewelry and plate, and £26,000 for furnishing Carlton House. The present prince of Wales has nothing from the country but £40,000 a year, and his wife has £10,000 a year. No application has ever been made for money to pay his debts or to assist him in any way.
CRICKET IN AMERICA
Cricket is the "national game" of England, where the sport has a venerable antiquity. Occasional references to the game are found in old books, which would place its origin some centuries back. The most ancient mention of the game is found in the Constitution Book of Guildford, by which it appears that in some legal proceedings in 1598 a witness, then aged fifty-nine, gave evidence that "when he was a scholar in the free schoole at Guldeford he and several of his fellowes did runne and plaie there at crickett and other plaies." The author of Echoes from Old Cricket Fields cites the biography of Bishop Ken to show that he played cricket at Winchester College in 1650, one of his scores, cut on the chapel-cloister wall, being still extant; and the same writer reproduces as a frontispiece to his "opusculum" an old engraving bearing date 1743, in which the wicket appears as a skeleton hurdle about two feet wide by one foot high, while the bat is the Saxon crec or crooked stick, with which the game was originally played, and from which the name cricket was doubtless derived.
In England the game is universally played: all classes take equal interest in it, and it is a curious fact that on the cricket-ground the lord and the laborer meet on equal terms, the zest of the game outweighing the prejudice of caste. The government encourages it as a physical discipline for the troops, and provides all barracks with cricket-grounds. Every regiment has its club, and, what is odd, the navy furnishes many crack players. It is the favorite par excellence at all schools, colleges and universities; every county, every town and every village has its local club; while the I Zingari and its host of rivals serve to focus the ubiquitous talent of All England. The public enjoy it, merely as spectators, to such a degree that a grand match-day at Lord's is only second in point of enthusiasm to the Derby Day. Special trains carry thousands, and the field presents a gay picture framed in a quadrangle of equipages. It is sometimes difficult, even by charging large admission-fees, to keep the number of spectators within convenient limits. Notwithstanding the motley assemblage which a match always attracts, so unobjectionable are the associations of the cricket-field that clergymen do not feel it unbecoming to participate in the diversion, either as players, umpires or spectators.
In this country, while cricket is known in a few localities, it has never been generally adopted. In New York a few English residents have for years formed the nucleus of a somewhat numerous fraternity, and the announcement that an American Cricketer's Manual will be published in that city during the present season indicates that home interest in the sport is on the increase. But the chief thriving-place of native American cricket is conceded to be Philadelphia, and it will be interesting, perhaps, to take a retrospect of the progress of the game in this city.