CRICKET.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 70, 11 March 1876, Page 2

CRICKET.

NELSON V. WAKEFIELD. The return match between these two clut>s was played in Victory Square this afternoon, and hns been a closely contested game so fir. Nelson having won the toss sent t^e country team to the wicket, and before the first wicket h*»d fallen teu runs had been scored. Por a tme the " outs" had the best of it, ond only 27 had been scored when the fifth wicket fell. Then, however, Sellon and T. E'le-n made a stand, and the score stood at 55 when they w<re parted, and steadily though slowly increased until it had renched 77, when tlie last roan was bowled. After lunch the Nelson men took tho bat, H. Halliday and Barnett appearing at the wirket to the bowling of Fowler and Eden. They did not make nm-h of a stand, three each, being all they could do towarin pulling down Wakefield's 77 Coles and H. Cross then got together, and bothered the bowlers for a lot;g time, running up the score to 36 before Coles succumbed to Fowler, after making Bby steady play. One or two others went down before 11. C'oss was joined by bis brother, shortly after which lie was bowled out by Edsn, altc making the fine score of 20. Nehon's prospects looked bad when Foote the last man went t > ths wickets, only 55 having been obtained, but before he wus dismissed the number hud increased to 73, C Cross having made 19. At 340 the Wakefleld men took the bat again, and at 4 o'olock, when our reporter left, two wickets had fallen ior 8 rnns. The following are the scores ot the two first innings : —

t ii c . w . E E K . " Well, how have you managed to kill the day?" "Kill ib, my dear fellow I , That's juafc. what ' I haven't: done;" hutit's precious near killed me." That was what I. heard said last night, and though it only applied to one day of the past seven, ifc occurred to me that it might have been spoken of the other six. Bufc Nelson* so far as I can see, does not stand alone in this respecfc. There seems to be an universal dulness prevailing throughout the colony just now. I don't speak commercially, for I have nofc sufficient practical acquaintance with mercantile matters to pronounce an opinion on thafc head, and, for anything I know to the contrary, merchants and tradesmen may be making heaps of money — I hope they are — but the dulness I refer to is what I may call social, in contradistinction to commercial. The papers both here and elsewhere contain little thafc is interesting of a local character, and the telegrams I think may be accepted as proof of the little that is going on. The Press Agency seem to be in the same fis as the newspaper people. They regard ifc as incumbent upon them fco provide something in the shape of news, and so they do, bufc I think thafc it will be generally allowed that if what has been telegraphed during the lrist few days had been omitted altogether nobody would have been any the worse for such omission. Yes, ifc is indeed a dull time of the year. Marlborough papers seem to feel this too, for in the absence of anything stirring they have fallen foul of one another in that elegant style which is characteristic of the Blenheim journals. Ifc doesn'fc much matter what is the bone of contention, or whether ifc is worth quarrelling about, bufc the editors of the rival papers evidently think it is, and so they have set to work tooth and nail to " have it out." Unfortunately I have nofc been able to trace the squabble from beginning to end (if it has ended), bufc one of them has been grossly insulted by the other calling his paper " a print," and referring to the oflice where it is published as " fche den." This was fcoo much for human flesh and blood to bear, and so the attacked party retaliates, and in doing so shows that he is quite equal to the occasion. The offending contemporary's " language," he says, " has become so exceedingly coarse and offensive that we may find ifc necessary ere long fco put down thafc little game with the ' iron hand.' " Then we begin to catch a glimpse of the " iron hand " after the velvet glove has been removed. The owner of it is not going to " follow the blackguard mode of procedure " adopted by the other side, but he hints afc the revenge he is about to take. Having quoted some of the " coarse and offensive" passages of which he complains, he himself resorts to language of a milder nature, as follows : — " Now all this foolery falls quite harmless upon us ; in fact, it only puts a whip into our hands with which to touch the thin-skinned genius of the Times on his most ticklish place, and make him kick, and snort, and bray incontinently." Times must be duller ab Blenheim than afc Nelson, for I haven't seen anything of this kind here yet. The blue gum of New Zealand seems to have some idea of throwing oufc a new root in search of more sustenance. I read this in a "Wellington paper the other day : — " "We understand that the Provincial Secretary, accompanied by Major Atkinson, will leave "Wellington on Wednesday, in order to make an official tour through the province, for tbe purpose of ascertaining personally whafc progress has been made in public works, and whafc are the special requirements of the several districts. It is probable that his Honor the Superintendent will also form one of the party, bufc thafc has not yet been positively decided." Now I should like to see our Provincial Secretary accompanied by Major Atkinson, and possibly the Superintendent, starting on a tour through this province to inspect the public works. Tbe time occupied would not be very long if they confined themselves to seeing what progress had been made in this department, but if they wanted to be home again within a month or two they would not, unless they were very foolish, make any attempt to ascertain the special requirements of the several districts. This, 1 fear, would take more of a Minister's time than he could afford to devote to Nelson, and yet I don't see why she has nofc as greafc a righfc fco such attentions as AVellingtou. But, somehow or other, they do manage to push their interests over there. This is leap year. I don't want to be proposed to for I hate having to say No, so that is nofc my reason for mentioning the fact, but I have learned that in America they have a way of celebrating this four-yearly event that I should very much like to see introduced here. This is the way they do it:-— '' On Friday nigbfc of January 28, tbe town of Merced was enlivened by a leap-year, calico, and neck-tie party. The affair was a grand success. The novelty of the thing was tbe ladies inviting the gents, and paying all expenses, oysters included — tbe ladies escorting their partners to ' oysters and wine for two, my boys.' Another novel and interesting feature of the evening was five young and pretty misses, acting as pages, furnishing the gents with lemonade, &c, without any ' stick ' in it. Very few of tbe ladies broke the rule by coming to fche party in other than calico dresses. Some oi

fche dresses were ; very tasteful and pretty." Now if there should be any , ' idea of getting up such a party here, I ; wish; to say thatjan invitation will find j me if addressed to the Evening Mail Jj oflice, and that it will most certainly bes accepted, for I think that sort of thing v would suit me very well. If there is one thing more than another in which New Zealand takes the shine out of the rest of the Australian colonies, it is the elaborate excellence of her English mail arrangements. The San Erancisco service, as we all know, works beautifully. The number of steamers that are engaged in running ; about, sometimes with and sometimes without our letters, is really astonishing, and goes far to prove how limitless are our resources. One comes in with " a passenger, two letters, and a bunch of bananas," while a sister ship steams past our shores and carries our mail to Sydney. Then, as was the case last week, two big boats arrive at Auckland withiu twenty minutes of one another. One has the mail, and the other, of course, has not. Then, as we have not steamers enough of our own plying on the coast, the two thousand tonner runs down from Auckland to Dunedin to pick up the letter bags, and deprive the local boats of a few passengers. And then, to crown all, we have the San Francisco mail leaving Nelson at 8 p.m. on one day and the Suez at the same same hour on the following morning. \ Of course it is very convenient to a merchant who has forgotten to say something to his London correspondent om Friday night to have an opportunity of remedying the error on Saturday morning, but does the game pay for the candle ? ■■■' ■■ I am glad to observe that thrift, economy, and foresight are virtues not unknown to the youth of Nelson. I discovered this yesterday, and in rather . a peculiar manner. I was passing a 1 greengrocer's shop, outside of which two or three little boys were gathered together gazing at the display of fruit with longing eyes. Some of it, which had evidently arrived at the stage of perfection some days previously, was stowed away in a small pile by itself, and over it was a notification to the effect thac it was to be disposed of at the moderate rate of twopence a pound. This attracted the attention ot the youngsters, one of whom exclaimed " Let's go and buy a pound shall us?" But there was another, more thoughtful and more cautious, if less nice, and he sagely remarked, "No fear, if hekeeps 'em a day or two longer they'll get more rottener, and he'll sell 'em then for a penny." I doubt that boy's taking a Provincial Scholarship, still, I think he will manage to get on ie the world. What he has chiefly to fear is ' sacrificing the lining of his stomach to that of his pocket. F.

Wakkfibld. — First Innings, P. Powell, b H. Cros? 5 X, Knapp, b H. Cross 4 H. Knapp, b H. Cross 6 • 11. Kaapp, run oat 3 S Fowler, c and b Cross ... ... 3 Sellon, 1 b w, b H. Croßa 15 T. Eden, c Coles, b Halliday 9 Fayen, b Coles 5 Smith, c Oolee, bC. Halliday ... 2 F.den, b C. Halliday 11 E. Fowler, not out „. 2 . JJye3 „ ... 9 Widea 3 Total 77 Nelson. — First Innimqs. IT. Balliday, c W. Eden, bT. Eden... 3 Barnelt, b 8. Fowler 3 Coles, b E. Fowler 8 O. Croas, no*; out 19 H. Cross, b Eden 2o O'Connor, b B. Fowler 1 Maling. c Sellon, b Eden 0 Greenfield, b Men , ... 3 C Halliday, b Eden , ... 0 Atkinson, 1 b w, b Fowler 1 Foole, b Fowler 6 Byes 7 Widpfl 1 Leg byes I Total ... „, ,„ 78