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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 273, 25 November 1878, Page 4

In a recent article on cricket 'the Saturday Mevitw says:— Cricket has this year been unusually uncertain. The great counties have now and then eraiihted the feat of Oxford in the University match, and have made pitiable scores, The Australian^ lately got out for 59 (disposing of theireighteen opponents for 33). Sussex, a county in the very deeps of failure, dismissed a strong Yorkshire team for 94, but put on a wretched 35 and a more wretched 24. Surrey has once or twice been scarcely more resolute or fortunate in defence. The bowlers are clearly beginning to have their turn, in spite I of the long innings which were made in ' June. There is probably no county eleven that might not, on a given day, find Lancashire too strong with Barlow' Melutyre, Mr Appleby. and Mr Steel If county matches were played regularly, on the system of ties, it is not at all impossible that the bowling of Derbyshire might win tbe cup. There are some successful youug bowlers among the Players, as Kearne and Bates, as well as among the Amateurs. The example of tbe Australians has' called attention to this department of the game. It is not necessary that every young bowler should try to make straightnesa mathematically correct on the Australian plan. To lift the hand over tbe bead, and to deliver the ball from a commanding eminence, is like the bard overhand stroke in lawn tennis. It pays but it ia not pretty. Nofr a peculiar style, but a steady devotion to an interesting, but till lately rathe^ 1 neglected, part of the game is needed.

Fielding, too, demands a revival. "We do not remember a year in which so many good matches have been spoiled acd discredited by missed catches, by slovenly failure to pick up a ball, by wild throwing at the toes of the wicketkeeper, or some yards over his head. Make good .fielding general, and you diminish the tyranny of the bati the arrogance of the men of averages. "A few week 9 ago," states the Border Post, of October 26, "a human skeleton was unearthed by the workmen engaged in forming the" new road .to Howlong, via the river. On the 24th instant we had- an opportunity of seeing the spot from whence the skeleton was taken, and to our intense surprise found the tomb was about sft below the surface in the solid rock. To discover a human being's remains in a mausoleum of adamantine stone appears to be so marvellous a story that it would be worthy of a veritable Buron Muncbausen. Nevertheless it is a fact ; 5 ft. of stone has been penetrated in some manner or other by the aborigines in years gone by, nud the cavity filled up by rocks. What were the implements used to penetrate the rock, and why the blacks preferred to sink a grave in the stone in preference to soft ground, are questions that require answering. A terrible story of famine and pestilence is tojd by the 'correspondent of tho New York ".EveniDg Pjut," at Rio Janeiro. A. district in' Brazil equal in extent to New England, the Middle Atlantic States, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana combined, haa been without rain ever since July, 1876. Brooks, springs, and wells long ago dried up. Even river beds have now become duaty channels. The oattle, of l which there were vast herd?, have died of thirst. The people perishing for want of food aud water, hava fled from tbeir homes, many of them dyinp, sometimes whola families together, before reaching a place of refuge. Those of them who escaped have overcrowded the cities, of refuge so greally as, io ; some cases to multiply the population : by live, and they are now herded to-: gather its the Open streets, living like swine on the scanty rations issued by the Government, and upon such refuse' as they can gather in the gutters. Well-nigh naked, and utterly debased by, their Bufferings, they live in bestial immorality, not scrupling even to resort to cannibalism in some instances, while BmalUpox.yellow fevor, dysentery, nod some other diseases are sweepiDb" them \ away by thousands: Aa if to leave no : element of wretchedness out of all account, they are victims of the moat 1 brutal ill-treatment at the' hands of the' police and soldiery, and worse' still, at ; the haods of vile speculators, who meke. a trade of thesa wretches' woes. The picture which, the correspondent preaenta is scarcely matched in its gbaailioeaa even fey the old records of the Oriental plague, and the story ie ! more distressing by. reason of the fact that the people were peaceful herdsmen and planters, cultivators of , the soil," whose homes have beeb made desolate; by a cause which could neither be fore- 1 seen nor provided agamat. Tbeir woee are not those of men who have chosen a life of crime, buttlio'ee of industrious agricultural people, efHieWd first with drought, then with famine, then with; pestilence, and finally with that Joss of; moral sense which brutaliaes iotoi criminala. without choice of their; wills.! Until now this terrible. story has not: been told in this country. We haye 5 known only that in parts of Brazil the 1 rainy .seasou haß. failed,. but we have; not hithel^toidre'amad that sueh 1 famine \ aa this afflicted so vast a territory. |