"A COLONIAL BLOW."

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3634, 6 March 1883, Page 4

"A COLONIAL BLOW."

This is how the writer in the Federal Australian takes' down some of the "colonial dicekist.-/' who blow so much of"their cricketing abilities:—"What in thunder did those 'blarst'd Britishers' do ro their Australians viators to make

them feel so cocky after six weeks spell in London r First of all we sent Sir ' Enry home.' a man whose name was a synonym for modesty itself, and who in order to keep all carnal ambition under strict control, used, after the fashion of the mediaeval monks, to retire to the seclusion of his cell seven times a day, and kick himself for five and twenfv minutes. And yet when he returned from a trip to ' Zooip 'he looked like a comet that had ju.st been washed and oiled, and had its tail done up in papers, and lie talked as if he had just leased the world, and all but himself were on sutieranec. Next we find the "gentle, lowly Billy Murdoch going home to introduce into England a- new game called cricket. AYhen sweet William left us, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, unless he was ' sot' on a hot stove, and as for getting him to 'speak a piece,' one might as well try to persuade a sardine to sing the ' Death of Nelson.' Mr , or "rather AVilliam Murdoch. Esq.. C.M.G. (Cricket Muster General), is, however, very much better now, and at the Criterion banquet, London. Sir Henry Barkley in the chair, our hero said he felt his position keenly, but he was very proud of it, though he would much rather stand out in the iield before any team of English cricketers. On the four times that his team was beaten he might say that there were not fourteen more grieved men in the world. [Laughter.] They knew that the eyes of the Australian colonists were upon them, and that the I honor of Australian cricket was entrusted to their hands. lie fdt ]~:rxoin>U,j r's .?/> G'iritrf WoUrli-u miCit.frcl hi K'Jilj'l. That general was sent out to do a certain thing— to conquer Arabi Pasha- —and he had done it. He rlllO speaker] was sent over as captain of an Australian cricket team to beat Enirland, and m; had done so. [Cheers.]' " Luk at that now! Jlu and Wols."lcy. No wonder poor old Trollope's dead." *