There are some peculiarities about cricket when viewed from an American standpoint. The association or league corresponds very well to our National or American League. A club of eleven men may be all professionals, or, as is usually the case, some may be amateurs. A professional is a player who is paid, and on the score his name appears without prefix, just “Brown.” But if he is an amateur and plays without pay, his name is on the score card “J. M. Brown, Esq.” He is then called a “gentleman player.” The game usually lasts two days. The side that is in stays in until ten men are put out. The pitcher or bowler tries to hit the wicket, three little posts that stand like our baseball home plate, and if he does, the batter is out. The batter, or in English the batsman, defends the “wicket,” and when he hits the ball far enough runs to the other wicket, which is located at the pitcher’s box. If he knocks a fly and it is caught he is out, or if a fielder gets the ball and hits the wicket while he is running, he is out. Two batsmen are up at a time, and a man may make a lot of runs. I saw Woolley, the pride of Kent, score 56 runs, and players often exceed the hundred mark. If the game is not finished in three days it is declared off.
The crowd was quiet and ladylike. Occasionally they would applaud and say “Well bowled, sir,” but they did not tell the umpire he was rotten and they never urged the visiting club to warm up another pitcher. Not a word was said by the players, not a pop-bottle was thrown, nobody was benched and there was never a thought of such a thing. The English are better sportsmen than we are, and they applaud a good play by a visitor. A man who tried to rattle the bowler by screaming that his arm was glass, would be arrested and probably hung.
Besides the cathedral, the quaint buildings and the cricket, Canterbury also offered an opportunity to see the moving pictures of the Jeffries-Johnson prize fight in a theater next to the church. Of course I did not go. I told several Englishmen that in America we considered these pictures degrading, and as between the fight pictures and the cathedral I preferred the cathedral. Besides, I had seen the fight pictures before.
Another very interesting church in Canterbury is St. Martin’s, a little one, but considered the mother church of England. It is said to be the one erected for Queen Bertha before her Saxon husband, Ethelbert, was converted. This was prior to 600. It is on a foundation which was used for a Roman temple. Within the church is a big stone font said to have been used for the baptizing of Ethelbert. There is little doubt but that the history of St. Martin’s is clear and it is the oldest Christian church in all England.
Associating with old cathedrals and Saxon churches makes one feel a few thrills. Even the inn where Chaucer put up his pilgrims seems modern. But cricket and the prize-fight pictures make up a sort of balance, and second-hand shops with wonderful salesmen bring one back to the 20th century. Canterbury has a famous brewery which is better patronized locally than is the cathedral, and farmers are in town trying to get hop-pickers just like Kansas farmers after hands in harvest-time. If St. Thomas could come back and see the automobiles running around his old monastery, notice the electric lights in the cathedral crypt, observe the American tourists with their guide-books and their gall, he would probably have some thrills himself.