wing will show. In 1824 the
gross revenue had fallen to L22,000: in 1872 it was nearly L70,000! 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
L13,000 to L14,000, net, a year from his duchy, as the last prince of
Wales had, there was a revenue of L50,000 a year clear, and cash enough
to buy Sandringham. The income is now increasing at the rate of about
L3000 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, L125,000 a year,
besides his duchy revenues, L28,000 for jewelry and plate, and L26,000
for furnishing Carlton House. The present prince of Wales has nothing
from the country but L40,000 a year, and his wife has L10,000 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 m
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