The mania about Cricket is apparently on the increase, and
though it is, on the whole, a harmless mania, yet it is one which will upset a good many boys' heads, and lead them to attach a sort of glory to making good hits with a bat and bowling intract- able balls, which is exceedingly likely to obscure their ideal of life, and confuse them as to the true proportion between physical and mental accomplishments. It appears that in 1872, when the telegraph-wires were first carried to Lord's Cricket Ground, the four principal matches of the year produced amongst them 800 telegrams, while in 1873 the number rose to 1,100, in 1874 to 1,300, and this year to 1,700. Indeed, this year, during the chief matches, dwarf counters have been erected at the telegraph-office for the use of boys not tall enough to write on the ordinary counter. The tendency of modern life to multiply small excitements about small things, till the air is as full of moral buzz as a summer evening is of midges, is certainly not a healthy one.
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