Super-acetate of lead, sulphate of zinc, vinegar, of each two drachms,
rub well together in a large mortar; then add melted hog’s lard, four
ounces, and continue stirring briskly until perfectly incorporated and
nearly cold.—_White._
CRAFT, _s._ Manual art; cunning; small sailing vessels.
CRAG, _s._ A rough steep rock; the rugged protuberances of rocks;
the neck.
CRAM, _v._ To stuff, to fill with more than can conveniently be
held; to fill with food beyond satiety; to fatten fowls.
Barley and wheat meal are generally the basis or chief ingredient, in
all fattening mixtures for chickens and fowls; but in Sussex, ground
oats are used, and in that county, I think, oats are in higher repute
for fattening than elsewhere, many large hogs being there fattened with
them. The food given them is ground oats made into gruel, mixed with
hogs’ grease, sugar, pot-liquor, and milk: or ground oats, treacle, and
suet, sheep’s plucks, &c. The fowls are kept very warm, and crammed
morning and night. The pot liquor is mixed with a few handfuls of
oatmeal and boiled, with which the meal is kneaded into crams or rolls
of a proper size. The fowls are put into the coop, two or three days
before they are crammed, which is continued for a fortnight, and they
are then sold to the higglers. Those fowls, full grown, weigh seven
pounds each, the average weight five pounds, but there are instances of
individuals double the weight.
The Workingham method of feeding is to confine the fowls in a dark
place, and cram them with a paste made of barley-meal, mutton suet,
treacle, or coarse sugar, and milk, and they are found completely ripe
in a fortnight. If kept longer, the fever that is induced by this
continued state of repletion renders them red and unsaleable, and
frequently kills them.—_Moubray._
CRAMP, _s._ A spasm or contraction of the limbs; a piece of iron
bent at each end, by which two bodies are held together; an
implement for removing or replacing the main-spring of a gun
lock.
CRAMP, _v._ To pain with cramps or twitches; to restrain; to bind
with cramp-irons.
CRANE, _s._ A bird with a long beak; an instrument made with ropes,
pulleys, and hooks, by which great weights are raised.
CRAW, _s._ The crop or first stomach of birds.
CRAW-FISH, _s._ A small shell-fish found in brooks.
CREANCE, _s._ In Falconry, a long and light string, which must
always be tied to the leash when lessons are given to a young
hawk.
CREST, _s._ Any tuft or ornament of the head.
CRESTED, _a._ Adorned with a plume or crest; wearing a comb.
CRETACEOUS, _a._ Abounding with chalk, chalky.
CREW, _s._ A company of people associated for any purpose; the
company of a ship.
CRIB, _a._ The rack or manger of a stable; the stall or cabin of an
ox.
Crib-biting, though only a trick or habit which a horse gets, and which
he may teach another that stands next him, especially a young horse, may
be considered as a disorder, because it renders him very liable to
indigestion and flatulent colic. There is no doubt that in crib-biting a
horse swallows air, and I have seen a horse distend his stomach and
bowels with it in an enormous degree, and he would thereby often get the
flatulent colic, and sometimes swell himself that he could scarcely
move. The only convenient method of preventing crib-biting is to put a
leather strap round the neck, close to the jaws, which prevents him from
laying hold of the manger; it may impede his feeding, however, and this
must be attended to. A muzzle sometimes answers the purpose.
The compiler has known horses effectually cured of crib-biting by merely
leaving them loose in the stable.—_White._
CRIBBAGE, _s._ A game at cards.
Cribbage, a game differing from all others by its immense variety of
chances, and generally reckoned useful to instruct young people in the
science of calculation, is played several ways, either by two, three, or
four persons, with five, six, or sometimes eight cards: the rules also
vary a little in different companies; but the following are those most
generally allowed.
The dealer may discover his own cards, though if he show any of the
adversary’s, the adversary is entitled to mark two points, and is also
at liberty to call a fresh deal.
Should too many cards be dealt to either party, the non-dealer may score
two points, and likewise demand another deal, upon the error being
detected previous to taking up the cards; but if he should not choose a
new deal, the extra cards must be drawn: and when any player is observed
to have in hand more than the proper number of cards, the opponent may
set up four points, and also call a new deal.
If any player meddle with the cards after dealing, till the period of
cutting them for the turn-up card, his opponent may score two points.
When any player scores more than he is entitled to, the other party may
not only put him back as many points as are overmarked, but likewise
score the same extra number for his own game.
Should either party meddle even with his own pegs unnecessarily, the
opponent may take two points, and if any one take out his front peg, he
must place the same back behind the other; though when any are misplaced
by accident, a by-stander is to replace the same according to the best
of his judgment, but never otherwise interfere.
When any player miscalculates, or neglects to set up what he is entitled
to, the adversary is, in some companies, allowed to take the points so
omitted; but in other companies this rule is not observed, the
inattentive player being only prohibited from afterwards scoring them.
Each player may place his own cards, when done with, on the pack.
In five-card cribbage, the cards are to be dealt one by one alternately;
but when played with six cards, it is customary to give three, and if
with eight cards, four at a time.
The non-dealer, at the commencement of the game, in five-card cribbage,
scores three points, called taking _three for last_; but in six and
eight-card cribbage this is not done.
Some parties permit flushes in play to be reckoned, when three or more
cards of a suit are laid down successively; that is, the person playing
the third card reckons three, and the player laying down a fourth of the
same suit scores four, and so on if five, six, or more can be played.
CRICKET, _s._ An insect that chirps about ovens or fire-places; a
sport.
[Illustration]
Of all the English athletic games, none perhaps presents so fine a scope
for bringing into full and constant play the qualities both of the mind
and body as that of cricket. A man who is essentially stupid will not
make a fine cricketer; neither will he who is not essentially active. He
must be active in all his faculties—he must be active in mind to prepare
for every advantage; and active in eye and limb, to avail himself of
those advantages. He must be cool-tempered, and, in the best sense of
the term—MANLY, for he must be able to endure fatigue, and to make light
of pain; since, like all athletic sports, cricket is not unattended with
danger, resulting from inattention and inexperience. The accidents,
however, attendant upon the players at cricket commonly arise from
unwatchfulness, or slowness of eye. A short-sighted person is as unfit
to become a cricketer, as one deaf would be to discriminate the most
delicate gradations and varieties in tones; added to which, he must be
in constant jeopardy of serious injury.
This noble game is thoroughly British. Its derivation is probably from
the Saxon “cɲẏce a stick.” Strutt, however, in his “Sports and
Pastimes,” states that he can find no record of the game under its
present appellation “beyond the commencement of the last century, where
it occurs in one of the songs published by d’Urfey.” The first four
lines of “Of a noble race was Shenkin,” run thus:—
“Her was the prettiest fellow
At foot-ball or at _cricket_,
At hunting chase, or nimble race,
How featly her could prick it.”
The same historian of our games doubts not that cricket derived its
origin from the ancient game of club-ball, the patronymics of which
being compounded of Welsh and Danish (_clwppa_ and _bol_) do not warrant
his conclusion, the Saxon being an elder occupant of our island. The
circumstance, however, of there being no illustration extant—no missal
illuminated with a group engaged in this king of athletic games, as is
the case with its plebeian brother, the club-ball; also from its
constitution being of a more civil and complicated character, we may
rationally infer that it is the offspring of a more polite, at all
events of a maturer age, than its fellow. The game of club-ball appears
to have been no other than the present well-known bat-and-ball, which,
with similar laws and customs prescribed in the playing at it, was
doubtless anterior to trap-ball. The trap, indeed, carries with it an
air of refinement in the “march of mechanism.”
They who are acquainted with some of the remote and unfrequented
villages of England, where the primitive manners, customs, and games of
our ancestors survive in the perfection of rude and unadulterated
simplicity, must have remarked the lads playing at a game which is the
same in its outline and principal features as the consummate piece of
perfection that at this day is the glory of “Lord’s,” and the pride of
English athletæ;—I mean the one in which a single stick is appointed for
a wicket, ditto for a bat, and the same repeated, of about three inches
in length, for a ball. If this be not the original of the game of
cricket, it is a plebeian imitation of it.
The constitution of this pastime has undergone considerable alterations
and improvements since it has become a favourite and fashionable
recreation. Even till as late as the year 1770, for instance, the wicket
had consisted of two stumps, when a _third_, the centre one, was
added:—a decided improvement; seeing that it multiplied the chances to
the batter of being bowled out, consequently increased the difficulty of
his position, and thereby exalted his maintaining it for any length of
time into the greater merit: for, under the old system, if the ball
passed between the stumps, the batter was not considered out; under the
improved system, such an event cannot happen; for the three stumps are
not pitched at so great a distance from each other as to allow of the
transit of the ball without knocking off the bale, which decides the
fate and existence of the bats-man. The bale too, which crowns the
stumps, formerly consisted of a single piece of wood, and therefore
required a considerable concussion of the ball to remove it, without
which the batter cannot be declared out; it is now divided in the
centre, and consequently a very slight agitation of either of the
outside stumps will displace the one half resting upon it; and this is
equally fatal to the batsman as if the two were knocked off.
The formation of the bat has also undergone considerable change and
improvement. In an old code of “the Laws of Cricket, revised at the Star
and Garter, Pall-mall, on February 25, 1774, by a committee of noblemen
and gentlemen,” the rules and directions are prefaced by a wood-cut of
the bat then in use, by which it appears that it was curved, and the
face flat.
The modern bat is not only perfectly upright, but its face is convex,
which again increases the difficulty to the player; for, in striking the
ball, unless he meet it directly in the centre of his bat, the chances
are many, that, from the convexity in the face of the bat, the ball will
fly off in a diagonal line, and the player may be caught out. The mode
of holding the bat has changed with its alteration of form; the chief
injunction now being to a young player to keep his bat as upright as
possible.
The regular and full game of cricket is composed of twenty-two players,
eleven in each party. Each party also selects an umpire, to whom all
disputes are referred; who decide whether a player be out or not; and
from whose judgment there is no appeal.
The wickets are pitched opposite to each other, upon the most level and
advantageous ground, and twenty-two yards asunder. They must stand
twenty-seven inches out of the ground, and the bales must be eight
inches in length. In a line with the wickets, a mark is cut in the turf,
three feet in length, which is termed the bowling crease; and at right
angles with this is a short line, called the return crease. The bowler,
in delivering his ball, is compelled to have one foot before, and the
other behind this crease; and if he fail, it is the duty of the umpire
at his wicket to call out—“No ball!” in which case, the batter may
strike it, and obtain what advantage he can, and if he be bowled out, it
is not reckoned. A good bowler is a most valuable member of the game,
and one on whom success mainly depends. The ball must not weigh more
than five ounces and three quarters, nor less than five ounces and a
half.
The bat must not be wider than four inches and a half; its height,
exclusive of the handle, should be twenty-one inches. There is no
absolute law respecting the height of the bat; this, however, is found
to be the most convenient.
The striker, or bats-man, is confined by a line, cut parallel with his
wicket, and four feet distant from it. This line is termed the popping
crease. If he transgress this boundary while the ball is in play, the
wicket-keeper, or any other player holding the ball, is at liberty to
put him out, by striking down his wicket with the ball. This, however,
must always be done by means of the ball itself; either by throwing it,
or, if near enough, by keeping the ball in hand at the time of putting
down the wicket.
The wicket-keeper holds likewise an important station in the game. He
stands opposite to the bowler, and behind the wicket at which the
striker is playing. The duties of the wicket-keeper are too various to
be detailed in this work, which, of course, affects no more than to give
an outline of the principle of the game.
Besides the bowler and wicket-keeper, who are the two most serviceable
men in the field; there are the first short slip, who stands near to the
wicket-keeper, consequently behind the wicket, yet diagonally in front
of the batter.
The point directly faces the striker. His station is about seven yards
from the popping-crease.
The middle-wicket stands on the off side, and about twenty-three yards
from the striker’s wicket.
The leg or hip has his appointment about sixteen yards from the
popping-crease, behind the batter.
The long-stop is placed behind the wicket-keeper, to save the balls he
may miss as they come from the bowler; for the batters may take the
advantage of running when a ball has been over-thrown, or has not been
stopped after the bowler has delivered it, although it may not have been
struck.
The long slip stands in a line with the striker, and between the point
and short slip, but farther out in the field.
A man to cover the middle-wicket and the point, stands on the off-side
of the striker. It is his duty to save those balls that either of the
above may have missed.
The long field on the off-side, stands between the middle-wicket and the
bowler, but at a considerable distance, to save the hard hits.
The long field on the on-side, is stationed at a great distance from the
striker, and on the other side of the bowler from the man last
mentioned.
After every four halls have been bowled, the umpire calls “Over!” when
the whole party, who are seeking out, (with the exception, of course, of
the bowler and wicket-keeper) change their positions to the opposite
quarters of the field.
[_Note._—The reader who may desire farther information respecting the
laws of this game, with instructions to the young player, is referred to
a little work entitled “The Young Cricketer’s Tutor, by John Nyren, who
was for many years a player in the celebrated old Hambledon Club.”]
CRIMP, _v._ To make several cuts across the spine of a fish when
just taken out of the water, by which it is rendered firmer when
produced at table.
CRIMSON, _s._ Red, somewhat darkened with blue; red in general.
CRINOSE, _a._ Hairy, full of hair.
CRIPPLE, _v._ To lame, to make lame.
CROAK, _v._ To make a hoarse low noise like a frog; to caw or cry as
a raven or crow.
CROOK, _s._ Any crooked or bent instrument; a sheep-hook; any thing
bent.
CROP, _s._ The craw of a bird.
CROP, _v._ To cut off the ends of any thing; to mow; to cut off the
ears.
Young dogs should not be cropped before the fourth and fifth week of
their age: when the ears are cut earlier, they sprout again, and the
form of the crop cannot be so well directed as when the ear is more
developed.
In cropping terriers, begin at the hinder root of the ear, close to the
head, and when this cut is carried through, one other cross cut from the
root at the front of the head, if managed with dexterity, will be
sufficient, and will make an excellent fox crop, without torturing the
animal with numerous trimmings. The less oblique the second cut is
carried, the more sharp and foxy will the crop prove: the portion cut
off, if laid on the remaining ear, will serve to direct the operation in
that also. A rounded crop may be made at one cut. The cropping of pug
puppies is the most painful of any; the cuts must, in general, be
repeated, and carried close to the root of the ear; as upon the total
absence of external ears (which gives an appearance of roundness to the
head) is the beauty of the animal _supposed_ to consist.
CROPFUL, _a._ Satiated, with a full belly.
CROPPER, _s._ A kind of pigeon with a large crop.
CROPSICK, _a._ Sick with excess and debauchery.