Motes and Comments.

Feilding Star, Volume II, Issue 493, 11 February 1908, Page 2

Motes and Comments.

There is a perverseness about cricket matches that is essentially feminine. Just when the Australian Cricket Council desires an extra stimulus given to the matches with the M.C.C. team, the latter strikes a bad wicket and goes to pieces in* the fourth test match. Why couldn't ! the bad luck hit the Australian team, jso as to leave the fifth and final ! match to provide a "gate?" This is j the lament of the Cricket Council. Three test games have been played, j arid of these Australia has won two and England the other. Of course, the unusual might again happen along, and England, having the last turn with the bat in the present contest, might hit out for England, home, and duty, and put new life into the "gate" although it will have to do wonders to achieve a win now. It's a great pastime, surely, which forces a pair of spectacles upon such a brilliant performer as Victor Trumper^ which makes a spectacle of Clem Hill, and makes no-goods of others, heroes every one of them on the battle fields of the past. The outstanding consistent figure in test cricket in Australia this season has been A. A. Noble, who has been a clever and lucky captain, winning the toss three times out of four throws and coming off every time of asking with the ♦at and the ball ; and "Warwick Armstrong has provided the latest surprise packet iv the game.

The editor of the Manawatu Times is obsessed with the name and personality of Mr Pirani, and can no more deal accurately with matters pertaining to that gentleman -jfthan can its Feilding correspondent. Still feeling sore because he has yet to make that t promised apology concerning th© Halcombe meeting, the editor of the Times this morning makes another attack upon Mr Pirani and. the Stab. The Terror of the Tiddlewinking Times knows perfectly well that Mr Pirani did not organise the details of ' the Hon. Mr McNab's visit as editor of the Star. And, in his vamped-up < account of the meeting ,of the Recep- ' tion Committee the editor, of -the

Times entirely forgot to record the fact that Mr Pirani, to make the action of the committee consistent, suggested that he should not accompany the party, and that if anyone was asked to go it should be the representative of the Advocate. It is almost useless replying to a man who has so bitter a personal prejudice and such an overweening conceit of himself as the editor of the Times. It is as well known to the angry editor as it is to everyone in Feilding that Mr Pirani was the secretary of the Reception Committee, and acted as chief spokesman of the deputation against his own desire, but at the unanimous wish of the committee. The real difference between Mr Pirani and the editor of the Times is that one has responsible duties and honors trust upon him, and the other thrusts himself into the limelight. This note is not written by Mr Pirani, but by his partner, who happens to be the editor of the Star. — — ■ — ■ _—_