A Hundred Years Ago.
(FROM THE _SPORTING MAGAZINE_ OF 1806.)
A notorious deer stealer, of the name of Smith, was apprehended by
Hamilton and Lovett, officers, on Thursday morning, January 30th, by
virtue of a warrant issued by the magistrates of Northamptonshire, which
was backed at Marlborough Street office. The charge against the prisoner
was for deer stealing in the park of the Earl of Pomfret, in the county
of Northampton, where depredations had been committed to a considerable
extent, as well as in various other parks in that neighbourhood. It was
stated that a white buck had been selected for Christmas dinner in Earl
Pomfret’s park, but that he was discovered to have been stolen when the
keepers sought to take him for slaughter. The prisoner was represented
as belonging to a gang of offenders some of whom were in custody in the
country. He was the _Robin Hood_ of the gang, and when committing
depredations in the forests his bravado and fierceness of temper struck
such terror into the minds of the keepers that when he was known to be
poaching, even alone, no one dared to approach him. The prisoner,
according to his own account, had carried on a successful trade in this
way for many years with impunity. He did not consider deer stealing as
any moral offence, but merely sporting, which he had been brought up to,
and which he could never desist from. He was ordered to be committed to
the county gaol of Northampton.
* * * * *
A match of pigeon-shooting took place at Heston on Thursday, February
13th, for twenty-five guineas, between J. Aaron, Esq., a gentleman of
sporting celebrity, and Mr. Dunford, who was considered one of the first
shots in Hampshire. Fifteen pigeons were allotted to each sportsman, and
Mr. Dunford commenced the sport—which of these should produce most dead
birds in fifteen shots. He killed the first nine, but hit the tenth bird
without effect, and the eleventh he missed. The other four birds were
despatched, making thirteen dead. Mr. Aaron followed, and killed eleven
birds successively, when betting was seven to four on his performance.
The twelfth and thirteenth birds were hit without effect, and the
fourteenth he killed, and missed the fifteenth, by which he lost the
wager.
* * * * *
Monday, the 10th, the stud of the late Premier, Mr. Pitt, consisting of
nine saddle horses, was disposed of by public auction at Tattersall’s.
The hon. gentleman was not distinguished for the excellence of his
cattle, and in his carriage he actually drove job-horses. Of those
brought to the hammer a bay gelding, six years old, by Pipator, fetched
the greatest price, and sold for 130 guineas. It was put in at 40
guineas, and when it had reached 50 a person present, who had been in
the employ of the late proprietor, bid at once 100 guineas, and it was
ultimately knocked down to him. A gelding, by Grog, which Mr. Pitt used
as a charger, fetched 72 guineas, and the whole 438 guineas.
The Sportsman’s Library.
The forty-third edition of John Wisden’s _Cricketers’ Almanack_[6] is a
bigger thing than ever, and now the chronicle of the cricket of the year
consists of over 700 pages, which fact demonstrates very forcibly how
the popularity of cricket has increased since the first issue of Wisden
in 1864, when 112 pages comprised the whole work.
Now that the other cricket annuals, the old green and red Lillywhites,
no longer appear, the responsibility of chronicling the history of the
game falls upon Mr. Sydney Pardon, the well-known journalist, who has
now for some years so ably edited _Wisden_.
We agree with Mr. Pardon that the task of preparing _Wisden_ does not
become easier with the lapse of years, so vast is the amount of
interesting matter which has to be compressed into one volume. The five
cricketers of the year, whose photographs form the frontispiece, are Joe
Vine, that keenest of cricketers in Sussex, who seems to enjoy nothing
in life more thoroughly than chasing the ball all over the field, and if
required will cheerfully field in the country at both ends.
He is a very good batsman, as his many fine partnerships with C. B. Fry
for the first wicket amply testify. But the most interesting feature of
Vine’s cricket was his bowling, which for a year or two nonplussed the
best batsmen. He was able to bowl the leg-twisting ball at a quicker
pace, both through the air and off the pitch, than any other English
bowler, and when he found his length he was very deadly, reminding one
of the best ball of Mr. G. E. Palmer, the Australian.
It is an interesting enough historical fact with regard to the greatest
leg-twist bowlers, that their careers have generally been extremely
brief. Mr. Palmer seems to have lost his length owing to his cultivation
of the leg-twist. Mr. R. C. Ramsay, in 1882, was for Cambridge
University a terror for a few weeks, and Messrs. C. L. Townsend, the
late E. A. Nepean, and the brothers Steel, have all had great successes
by this method in their time, but, somehow, no cricketer seems to have
succeeded in the craft of bowling leg-twisters for a very long time,
with the notable exception of Mr. Warwick Armstrong, who, during the
last Australian tour in this country, bowled no less than 1,027 overs,
of which 308 were maiden overs.
Joe Vine can point to a couple of very fine bowling performances. In
1901 he took sixteen wickets at Nottingham—eight in each innings—for 161
runs, and so enabled Sussex to win at Trent Bridge for the first time
for forty years. In 1902, at Hastings, against the Australians, he took
7 wickets for 31 runs; but sad to say, in 1905 the 21 wickets he
captured for his county cost over 41 runs apiece!
Mr. L. G. Wright, the veteran Derbyshire cricketer, justly enough, is
one of the selected five, and although he is now over 44 years of age,
he is by common consent held to be the best “point” amongst first-class
fieldsmen of to-day. He stands close up to the batsman, and his agility
and quickness are quite astonishing, for of recent years perfect wickets
and academic batsmanship have rendered the post of point proper all but
obsolete.
An interesting feature of Mr. Wright’s cricket is, that like a good
vintage wine, it appears to improve with age. He first played for
Derbyshire in 1883, and since 1887 he has been a regular member of the
team when he could play, and last year, in his twenty-second season, he
came out easily top of the county averages, with an aggregate of 1,651
runs for 38 innings, giving an average of 43 runs per innings.
Amongst other big performances he scored a century in each innings
against Warwickshire at Birmingham. He scored 176 out of 323 in the
first innings and followed on with 122 out of 197, in first and out
last.
We understand that a very influential committee has been formed to
organise a testimonial, and we wish the scheme every success. Probably,
Mr. Wright holds the record of having played upon the losing side in
more county matches than any other cricketer, and so his sustained good
play for Derbyshire is all the more commendable.
George Thompson is another star cricketer who has lent much importance
to the doings of a weak team, and it is not too much to say that, but
for Thompson, Northamptonshire could not have last year gained admission
to the first class. Since his first appearance in 1895 he has put in
consistently good work both with ball and bat, and, whether for his
county, or for the Players, or the Marylebone Club, he is always one of
the most useful men on a side, as he also proved himself to be when,
with Mr. Warner’s team in New Zealand, he took 177 wickets at a cost of
under seven runs a-piece, and, in the West Indies, with Lord Brackley’s
team, he took 126 wickets for ten runs a-piece.
Those tried and valuable cricketers, Walter Lees and David Denton,
complete the gallery of five, and it may well be said of them that if
they had played more often in the test matches of last season no one
would have been surprised. In the absence of Mr. MacLaren, Denton was
included in the England team at Leeds, but it was not one of his lucky
days. Lees was reserve man on each occasion, without actually playing in
any of the matches. At the time of writing Denton is the mainstay of the
batting line of Mr. P. F. Warner’s team in South Africa, and it is just
as well for the party that the Yorkshireman should find himself in luck.
There are some interesting personal reminiscences of the late Mr. R. A.
H. Mitchell, written by Mr. Russell Walker and another old cricketer;
and Captain W. J. Seton contributes a very complete article upon public
school cricket. The list of cricket records is a rapidly increasing
feature of the general information supplied by the editor, and now
extends to some twenty-two pages, whilst no fewer than seventeen pages
are taken up by short obituary notices of cricketers who died in 1905,
there being many well-known names in the sad list. The record of the
year’s cricket is more voluminous than ever, and the full doings and
analyses of the Australian tour run into sixty-two pages.
In the records of the Australian wicket-keepers we are surprised to
notice that whilst Kelly caught 19 and stumped 7, Newland caught 12 and
stumped 7, and yet Newland was regarded by everybody as very
considerably inferior to Kelly, and kept wicket upon comparatively few
occasions.
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