THE COMMON ROUND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20611, 9 January 1929, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND.

By Wayfaeeb. ' It is possible to have too much of a good thing—even of cricket Still one must be more or less in the fnnWnn, “Doubtless, Heaven might have made a better berry than the strawberry, but certainly Heaven never did,” said a good English divine. Quite a few people, varying the phrase, would be prepared to say that man might have developed a better game than cricket, but. certainly he never did. The inventor of cricket has no monument, and for a very good reason. Nobody invented cricket. It was evolved. So far as has been ascertained, it seems to have been evolved from the games of stool-ball and tip-cat, or, as it was called, “ cat and dog.” From stool-ball we borrowed the primitive wicket—a stool or “cricket"— which (perhaps) gave its name to the pastime. From stool-ball, too, we have the custom of tossing or bowling the ball to the striker. From “ cat and dog ”we borrow the part of the game which consists in, running between two fixed points while the ball (at “cat and ■ dog”’ the cat, or piece of wood) is being fielded or returned by the other , side. Cat and Dog ” is in one sense , a classical game. Bunyan tells us that he was playing at it and was just • about to strike the cat when he heard a supernatural voice bidding him forbear.

The foregoing extracts—and there is temptation to borrow more—are culled from an article on the game written forty-five years ago by Andrew Lang. Tho genial author pays tribute to George Meredith’s discernment in affirming that cricket requires beer and beef for its noble nurture. He proceeds; “It is impossible to speak of the cricket of to-day without thinking at once of the Australians. . . . When one’s university beats both Cambridge and the Colonists then a man can lift his head up. But of. the two I would rather be beaten by Cambridge if only. England can , cause wailing op the banks of the Tarra Yarra and tho Murmmbidgee.” Here is another passage from these cricket reflec-. tions of 1884: / . The real strength of the Australians lies in a department where no labour will enable us to equal them. The bowler is born, not made, and the Aus- : tralians are born bowlers. Bowling is in the air of. the land of the spear and the boomerang, their native missile

weapons. That reads a trifle curiously to-day In the light of the dnxiety of the Australians to unearth bowling talent with which to subdue the batting prowess of Chapman’s team. The English captain’s initials happen to be A.P.F.0., which, a correspondent of a London paper has discovered, to* his great satisfaction, stand for “ Always Plays Fine Cricket.”

A feature of the recent Lord Mayor’s Show in London was a cricket team of 1850. The archaic topJiatted veterans in the pageant would serve as a reminder that Sir (J. E.) Knyaston Studd was a cricketer of note in his time, and a member of a famous cricketing family. Punch, looking back to a great team; that “knocked the Australian till they bit the field,” muses:— \ i - f We who wore there . enjoying J.B.K.

Rad no Idea he’d bo Lord ’Mayor to-day. Mr Baldwin has been pleasantly reminiscent about the day . when for him the family, of the now Lord Mayor was the greatest and most to be revered in the land. An exception to the genetal respect in which the cricket prowess of the Studds was held in the Eighties is indicated, however, in this anecdote:— In the match between England and Australia at the Oval in 1882 England required 10 runs to win when Edmund . Peate, the Yorkshire bowler, joined Mr C. T. Studd, who had made a century against Spofforth and Boyle a few weeks earlier. It was calculated that the match could be won if only Peate would block the. ball and let Studd have as much of the bowling as possible. But Peate bad other views. He lashed out and scored a couple. He had another go and was dean bowled. Australia won by seven runs, and Peate was reprimanded. “Very sorry, gen- . tlemen, he said with true Yorkshire aplomb, “but I’ couldn’t trust Mr Studd.” Gable item:- * At Hull, the magistrates beard an . -application by Eva. Venus for a separation order from William Venus, a vocalist, who gave evidence that his wife was so lazy that he had to wash ' her, dress her, cut her nails, comb her hair, and do tbe housework. The application was dismissed. It is a hard and ungrateful world. ' The man who conld sing in such circumstances shonld.be sure of his place in the next. Mr Mantalini, at the mangle, lived, the life of a lord compared with Mr Venus. ~ The Gat Vbnuses. . .When Venus Aphrodite ■’ Stopped blithely from the loam ;" ,Sbe:,. was" .‘about the cleanest thing— The water was bar" homo, : , But modern Mrs Venus No emulation fired. The bathroom made her weary. The soap dish made her tired. Said restful Mrs Venus: “ I like a life of ease. - If men were sent to clean us, They may try It it they please.” So Mr . Venus carried on, ■ And supervised her ears, With basin, towel, and scissors too. All watered by his tears. Alas! this nice arrangement Was all too soon cut short. “Tyrant!” quoth Mrs Venus, And hauled him to the court. •Perhaps appropriately from the United States, as a country committed to prohibition, has come the suggestion that it is time a memorial was devised to the inventor of soda-water. An American scientific journal promulgates the idea that the name of Joseph Priestly should be commemorated in every school by “ a fountain flowing. freely with the beverage that carbonates but does not inebriate.” Joseph Priestly was an extraordinary man, and some of his activities were calculated to cause a good deal more disturbance than the mere enlivening of water with gas. For Priestly, the Manchester Guardian reminds us, may fairly be said to have carbonated the whole atmosphere of religious thought in Britain, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, and the effervescence then begun is by no means stilled yet, least of all in the United States. The “ explosive. Yorkshireman,” to whom science was something more than a hobby, found vent for his main passion in his championship in the religious field of the need for critical examination of accepted dogma. And the verdict of to-day seems to be that it would be hard to overestimate what higher criticism and liberal dissent have owed to Dr Priestley’s fearless intellectual sincerity. It led to the burning of his house by a Birmingham mob, and ultimately to his choice of America as a home. But if ’ the Americans can exalt him no higher than as the Father of Sodawater, and proceed with the memorial idea, one may hope that they will see to it that the unveiling ceremony is graced by an oration from Mr Chesterton himself, author of the nobles lines:— As for all the windy waters, They wore rained like tempests down. When good drink had been dishonoured By the tipplers of the Town. When red wine had brought red ruin, And the death-dance of our times Heaven sent ns soda water ' As a torment for our crimes. Gastronomists, who have more chances than usual about this time of the year, may be interested to hear of “ intrasauce ” cooking. An article on scientific progress conveys the news that in France, land of famous cooks and sauces, poultry and meat are now seasoned by hmodermic injection:

The new method, devised by Dr A. Gauducheau, makes use of a principle of physiology and- injects sauces and seasoning directly into the blood stream of chicken and other fowl. In this way the-flavouring penetrates to all parts of the meat. “ Intra-sauce ” .is the name Dr Gauducheau coined for the fluid he uses in this sort of cookless cookery. He has tried the method on over 200 animals, using all kinds of poultry and sheep and pigs.

All very scientific and beautiful, no doubt, and further encouragement to the epicure, serenely full, to say, “ Pate cannot ham me—l have dined to-day.’*