SAN FRANCISCO MAIL NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5414, 3 August 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

SAN FRANCISCO MAIL NEWS.

(from our own correspondent.)

Auckland, Wednesday. Concerning the exploits of the Australian cricketers in England the Home Hews says ; The proofs of the Australian Eleven’s success are quite dramatic. Their somewhat tame debut at Nottingham was in the nature of an unpretending overture, but the curtain-fell on the first aet nt Lord’s to rounds of applause at their splendid performance. When Grace, the far-famed batter, went out for four, and wickets went flying right and left, so that the last fell to a ridiculously small score, it was clear that our Antipodean cousins could more than hold their own with the best cricketers in the country ; indeed the Australians .were so good '‘allround”, that they will ho difficult to beat. Their fielding is the admiration of all who beheld it. They have.among them many excellent bats, but their great strength, is in bowling. Their bowlers enjoy peculiar sobriquets indicative of their powers. The lefthauded Allan is known as "the crouching panther” or “bowler of a century,” Boyle is described as “the very devil,” but Spofforth is the demon bowler, and carries off the palm. His delivery is appalling. The balls come thundering in like caunoushofc, yet he has guile when seemingly about tobovyl his fastest to drop in slow, which is generally fatal to batsmen. Spofforth is a Yorkshlrcmau by extraction. His father was well-known as a sportsman, and rode as . straight as the best with the York and Aiusty hounds; but whether from Yorkshire originally or not, ho and his colleagues are all of our own flesh and blood, and wo welcome their prowess cheerfully tvs a proof that tho old stock is not degenerating in the far-off lauds. At tho Princess, the admiration and interest which the Australian cricketers excite is best shown by tha crowds attracted by their play. At the Oval i few weeks ago the money taken at the turnstiles amounted to a very large sum, and nowat the Princess 10,000 shillings at least were spent in admission. The attendance of numbers of people, many of the highest quality, was sufficiently large. Pitiless rain came down in torrents, and spoilt half tho fun. This moisture may in a measure explain why in the first innings the Australians did nob do quite so well as usual. On the other hand, the team of Gentlemen opposed to them was unusually large, and really strong, and in excellent form. D. Grace played his level best, and the fieldiug, in which tho Australians have hitherto been far superior, was quite as good on the Gentlemen’s side. *

The enthusiasm in Canada for England is highly eulogised. All throughout the late momentous . months offers of readiness to servo anywhere were made in shoals to the-. Secretary of State for War. Canadian soldiers, of all ranks, and in great numbers, aro only too eager to take part in foreign war. 3Mr. Lowther expressed with regret to the Irish deputation the inability of the Government to sanction the formation of volunteer corps in Ireland. The chief business in the House of Commons will be the Government Valuation Bill and some Scotch and Irish questions. The Prince of Wales has accepted the office of President of the - Colonial Institute, rendered vacant by the retirement of the Duke of Manchester.

The New York Tribunes Berlin special says: —Mehemet Ali, in conversation, said he telegraphed to his Government recommending that ho and his colleague be directed to make protest against the dismemberment of Turkey and withdraw from the Congress. He saw he was treated curtly, and harshly spoken to by the President of the Congress for endeavoring to maintain the rights of Turkey, and that a secret understanding evidently existed between Austria, England, Germany, and France respecting the work accomplished by the commissioners to be appointed by Congress, and these would each provide for some further spoliation of the Empire of Turkey. His protests against the surrender of Bosnia and Herzegovina had been almost contemptuously disregarded, whilst the demands of Greece were granted, he believed, to an extent which would amaze anyone. Its representative had asked for the cession of Epirus, and of Crete, and of Rhodes. He had laid before Congress a memorial representing that even Constantinople should become Greek, and also placed before them an ethnographical table showing that the Greek, Bulgarian, Servian, and Montenegrin population outnumbered all the other inhabitants of Turkey. Then Persia, continued Mehemst Ali, is to have a slice of the empire, and the commissioners will give Russia florae further compensation in the East as a set-off to Austria's gift of Bosnia and Herzegovina. When asked if Turkey could now make successful* resistance, he replied that she was the only Power in Europe to-day that was really not afraid to go t'o war. In the House of Commons Mr. Handbury has withdrawn his note criticising Mr. Gladstone’s article in the Nineteenth Century as seditious.

The following are soma of the points in a conversation between Prince Bismarck ami the' correspondent of , the Loudon Times. The Prince said he saw that England would go to war on the question of Bulgaria, therefore when so many negotiations between England and Russia broke down, he hastened to the rival plenipotentiaries, and caused them to renew their negotiations. Prince Bismarck supposed agreement would be readily arrived at as to the mere question of the frontiers ofEoamnlia,&c. He did not believe any serious difficulty could arise relative to Greece. The Greeks were doubtless an interesting people. If it were a question of choosing between Greeks and Turks he should prefer Greeks, as being more civilised ; but the Turks, although they would really yield to Austria, were great and formidable, and would defend themselves with all their might against the. Greeks. It was as if Germany under the first French Empire had been required to yield to a small second army State because she had been compelled to submit to the mighty power of Napoleon. Prince Bismarck added that for his part he would certainly accept all the concessions which wore obtainable for Greece, but be anticipated no serious struggle.