an account describing the game of 1888 says that
just before midday a procession of men grotesquely attired was formed,
headed by a man bearing three footballs on a triangular frame, over
which was the motto:--

"Kick away both Whig and Tory,
Wind and water Dorking's glory."

The Town Crier started the game, kicked off the first ball at two
o'clock, and stopped it at six. But that was in 1888. Twenty years have
changed the Crier's duties. Fines and the police have stopped the old
custom altogether.

Fifty years ago the Dorking cricket ground at Cotmandene was hardly less
well known than the Oval. Two Dorking cricketers belong to the glorious
days of Cotmandene. Henry Jupp was born in the town, and Tom Humphrey at
Mitcham, but both kept public-houses in Dorking, and both played great
cricket for the county. Many stories are told of Jupp, who was a
favourite with the crowd, but one of the oldest belongs to Cotmandene.
The match was for his benefit, and he was batting. Playing back at a
ball, he trod on his wicket, and a bail fell. He picked up the bail,
replaced it, and was reminded that he was out. "Out! At Dorking! Not
me!" Nor did he go out, but made a hundred instead.

Another of Dorking's inhabitants made history in a different way.
Brayley's _History of Surrey_ was printed throughout in Dorking, and
Ede, the printer, is said to have spent over L10,000 in the printing.
What he made out of it is doubtful; he had made the L10,000 by his three
businesses as printer, chemist, and perfumer.

The real Dorking, apart from its battles over and to come, is
sufficiently happy to have had very little history. The Danes sacked it,
tradition says: they cannot have had much plunder. Julius Caesar marched
through it, perhaps, if there was a Dorking then; the Roman road, at all
events, the great Stone Street, which is still an English road by Ockley
to the south, drove through the corner of Dorking churchyard. Another
event of the dark days was an earthquake in 1551, in which, according to
Henry Machyn's _Diary_, "pottes, panes, and dysys dounst and mett fell
downe abowt howse and with many odur thyngs." But an earthquake which
could do nothing more than make pots, pans and dishes dance is hardly an
earthquake at all.

Perhaps its greatest event of historical times was a funeral. On the
23rd of December, 1815, Charles Howard, eleventh Duke of Norfolk, was
buried at Dorking with the pomp and pageantry of a king. The pr