Sporting notions of present days and past

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156 SPORTING NOTIONS
knows it. I guess that very seldom has an
English company touring in Australia had a
better or more enjoyable time than did that which
Lord Darnley took out
in 1
882 at the invitation
of the Melbourne Cricket Club. I wish he was
going " back " this autumn, and would take me.
We should miss some of the 1882 experiences,
though. For instance, you would scarcely expect
to be asked " How the devil this Ivory Bliff called
himself an Honourable, seeing that he was not
an M. L.A.," and the shipwreck effect would, I
trust, be omitted. While Mr Bligh was in
command I do not think that he ever had a wry
word with one of the team, nor with any of the
opposition except once, and that was when a
professor surreptitiously adorned his boots with
things like the clamps boys used to use for
tree-climbing, intending to make a place for the
other end bowler. Lord Darnley was a model
cricketer, game to do any mortal thing to make
sport and play any part—high, middling, or
humble.
When wishful to protest against our latter-
day practice of overdoing cricket (also boat-racing
and almost every mortal thing else in which we
are nationally concerned as competitors), it
is grateful to find there is another pelican in
the wilderness. "Now that the last test match
is over, it is about time to protest against the
enormous prominence that these events occupy
in the public mind. Judging by the evening
Press, one would have imagined last week
that England as a nation was on the verge of
ruin, and that annihilation was imminent."
"Keen sportsmanship and enthusiasm in such
things are all very well, but to let them be
t
cs 1
u1".