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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 127, 31 May 1871, Page 2

"John Perrybingle " writes ,to the Melbourne Weekly Times : — " Cricket isn't a graceful game — it never was ; but it's grown less gracefuller than it used to be. There was a time when a lad could stand up before his wicket, and be bowled at ; now he's got to stand up and be made a cpckshy qf., : The way of it is thus — the batter takes his place to be made batter pudding of, if possible, by the bowler, and to save himself from being smashed to a pulp, puts on a kind of armor, that makes him look like the portrait in the picture books of an Armadillo. : Then, the bowler, shuts one eye, dodges' backwards and forwards in a playful sort of way for two or three seconds, chucks his arms about. wind-mill faphion, , and shies the ball, as you'd shy a stone at a street dog, as hard as. he can pelt at the batter's legs. What he wants is pot to hit the wickets, .but to cripple the batter and makes him feel miserable. Very likely, the ball does hit the latter somewhere in the stomach, or on the contrary ; and if so;;he ? s not up to. the knocker for the shy, and gets out leg before wicket, or stumped or some. game of that kind. When I used to go, on. the cheap to. Lord's ground in the old days, 1 but they didn't play'cricket like j -this, ,; • they ; tell me times, are changed 'there as well as here, and that when a.cricketer, can hit another cricketer in the stomach, or on the contrary, he's a happy man. .:i , i;' ,'.■■' Fiji.— One of the latest communications received from Eiji gives itbe. following, ac-^ count of the state of the market there: — " You would 6e surprised at the heaps of merchaadWa«tliat\are piled up in the stores upon the beach, far, very far, in excess of the (demand. Importers to Australia' and ]^PeWi.Ze^lkbd'iof.wine v ß,llispiri^ bieer, Ih&i&i ware, dry ..goodSj provisions, &c, have evidently ilboke'd r upon -Fiji' as a certain outletr,'fpr.>tbeir^snrpluis,Bt.ock. , . ,Apd ; here aiiah stock is held, considering thepopula

tioD, in prodigious quantities. Much of it is as dead as though buried in the cemetery at Haslem's Creek. la vain those gifted auctioneers, Messrs Rurt and Cudlip, at their respective storeß, offer, with eloquence that would do honor to your assembly, and with persuasive powers that you would think nothing could resist, goods that I am certain would be briskly competed for in any of your Sydney auction marts. All have abundance for many months to come — there is no money on " the beach," and no buyers for anything. I am concerned to think that there will be many sufferers in Sydney by this flood of merchandise lo Fiji, although with the cessation of war, and the coining abundant crops of cotton, I think there will be a great reaction, and prosperity resume her sway. Yet with all the scarcity of money and depression iv trade I have mentioned, there is one line of busiuess that seems to flourish like a green bay tree, and that is the public houses. Last June Levukn boasted only three hotels — Turner's, Perkins's and Unwin and Niemen's. Now there are forty- two ! " Cape of .Good Hope. — By way of Mauritius weHiave Natal news to January 31, from^wltic'h we gather that the finds of diamonds' cphldoueii/ to he considerable, though at Natal IpereWas litilfeeuthusiaHm, as the fields were atTPlicling too many from more regular occupations:" .3. Tlw want of a defiuite settlement of the trobrrdaries and claims of the different parties to the territories where diamonds are fouud, and likely to be fouD,d, was much felt, and there were strong rumtfrs of war between some of the natives and the Transvaal Republic. Sir H. Barkly, before he left England, informed a deputation of the South African Diamond Company, that the whole diamond country is in dispute as to ownership, but that the British Government, so far as documents are to hand, regard the claims of the Griqua chief Waterboer as the most valid. Waterboer consents to open negotiations for declaring the whole of his territory British, and it is possible that in course of time the Transvaal Republic and Free State will place themselves under Briiish rule. It appears that the news of the finding of an 81 carat diamond had spread over all the fields on the Vaal, and had attracted an immense crowd to the district in which it was dis- „ covered. A Youth" .of nineteen who recently committed an atrocious murder in the State of Vermont, U.S., the victim being a man of seventy-six, and the object of the crime, plunder, has been sentenced to solitary imprisonment for one year, and then to be hanged.