RANJITSINGHI, CRICKETER AND POTENTATE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9022, 8 January 1908, Page 7

RANJITSINGHI, CRICKETER AND POTENTATE.

Ranjitsinghi the Jam of Nawanagar, who will always be popularly known as "Ranji," has given the strongest proof possible of his frequently declared affection for England by comXing in the middle of the fog season > to settle down in it in search of health (says the London correspondent of the Brisbane "Daily Mail")- "He has," the correspondent writes, "had trouble in various forms lately—a broken shoulder-bone, brain-fag from overwork as a reformer in his negJected State, and an attack of enteric, which very nearly finished him. In this latter illness he was unconscious .at one stage for four days. .For the present he has had enough of Nawanagar,- and so has come to England for twelve months, accompanied by sir>'dat3, aides-de-camp, and ten personal •attendants. The natives, however, V arc mainly ornamental. His com-mander-in-chief appears to b<? Mv A. C. M'Laren, the Lancashire cricketer, who deals with correspondence, issues commands, and does most of the talking for his friend. 'When I was staying with him last winter,' says Mr M'Laren, in a .description oi the •J' -Jam's strenuous life, 'he rose at 6.30 and did an immense amount of correspondence— sometimes in his pyjamas until about 10, when he had tiffin. Fflbm 12 to 4.30 be worked steadily, .receiving a stream of people with various grievances. I have seen as many as sixty people waiting in a line for interviews.' Cricket was nothing to it. Using English ideas and employing English assistants, IRanji' ha's formed a city improvement trust, started a housing scheme for the poor, ordered the construction of a grain market, and initiated other reforms."