ILLUSTRATED INTERVIETVS.
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benches is young Harrow, cagerly watching and waiting for every ball that leaves the bowler’s hand, and every hit that comes from the striker’s bat. But go on a little farther and you rcach the pavilion. Ilere sit the two houses who are fighting with bat and ball to- day. You can easily tcll the supporters of the two sides. Let the bowler deliver a good ball, and fifty voices at the pavilion go up n one great shout ; but let the batsman make a grand drive, and the same fifty voices are silent, while the other hal-hundred take up the shout. If you want to hear a real, unadulterated English shout, ask a Harrow boy to cheer; if you want a practical definition of enthu- siasm, go to a Saturday aftcrmoon match at Harrow.
Mr. Welldon and I sat down on one of the scats, whilst Scamp lay at his master’s feet.
“We have fifteen clubs here,” said M. Welldon, “and in a couple of years’ time 1 venture to prophesy a score. The cricket at Harrow is practically looked after by friends, though the masters play their part as well. Lord Bessborough has trained young Harro- vians to bat for the last fifty years; the late Mr. Grimston was celdom absent from the feld, and to-day Mr. I. D. Walker ismostenthusiastic
THIE SPELECH-IRROOM,
[Elliott £ Fry.
in his batting and bowling lessons. I often have requests from the parents of boys to *let them play cricket to their hearts’ content,’ and when the House of Commons 1s sitting, the ground is alive with M.P.s on a Saturday afternoon—-probably to see if I am carrying out their instructions. The big match at Lord’s is systematically trained for. Lalways muke a point of keeping the boys in school till cieht o’clock on the morning of the liton and Harrow match. It steadies them. You have only to look at that pavilion to know what the Harrow boys love. IHark at them now ! Well hit l—well hit!”
Mr. Welldon himself had caught the spirit of enthusiasm, and his sudden shout told that the Head Master’s love ran in the same dircction as the boys’.
“Tn the old days at Lords, on the occasion of the annual battle between the two great schools,” he said, after watching a cood four run out, ‘there were no ropes round the pitch to keep it clear. Once, one of our youngsters got a ball in the face, and his nosc began to bleed. His mother, who was on the ground, rushed from her seat to her boy. The captain, with the utmost gravity and courtesy, turned to the lady, saying, as he ordercd her off the ground:
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