Dimming of the Day

64 July 1914 three of the first five in the bowling were amateurs (S.G.Smith, Jaques and Geoffrey Davies of Essex and Cambridge University). Alec Kennedy had become the first to reach 100 wickets for the season, helping to keep Hampshire as high as fourth. On 21 July the exciting news was that the trial of Mme Caillaux had begun in Paris. Wife of the former Prime Minister, she was giving her evidence. Feeling her husband traduced and slandered by Le Figaro , she had taken matters into her own hands, made an appointment with M Calmette, the editor, and shot him dead. Over the next week or so, the trial was to occupy far more minds in Europe than the prospect of war. For the Daily Express the front page was about the palace conference on Ireland, with a second feature on Mme Caillaux. The Express provided a list of footballers who had been reinstated as amateurs by the FA (and those who had been refused). There was a fair amount of football chat (QPR moving to Shepherds Bush). As well as full scores and reports of county cricket, there was a column of club scores from the Home Counties and an announcement of the Cyphers Club week at Beckenham. B.D.Hylton-Stewart’s ‘breezy’ hundred for Somerset against Essex was reported. He had, it said, ‘been out of form recently, but in a county where talent is not abundant, he has been given a chance of finding it.’ The sub head was ‘Giving it Wood’. Hylton-Stewart had been to Bath College and in 1911 was living with his parents at Bath Rectory: his occupation shown as ‘university student Cambridge’. He played three games for the university (though not winning a blue) but a fair few games for Somerset from 1912 to 1914. After the war he played minor county cricket for Hertfordshire. The crisis in central Europe was beginning to seem worrying, with the impression that Austria was leaning hard on Serbia to make concessions (having in fact sent a note with which Serbia was most unlikely to comply) Share prices on the Vienna bourse had fallen heavily. And there were worries in Berlin. Lancashire subsided completely at the Oval, bowled out twice in the day for 108 and 136 to lose by an innings and 158. At Southampton it was Alec Bowell’s benefit and Sussex were all out for 196, Hampshire replying with 87-2. At Headingley, Yorkshire were bowled out for 75, James Iremonger taking six for 28 and Nottinghamshire were 136-7 in reply. At Maidstone Kent made 251 and Gloucestershire 108-8. Francis Ellis, in his first season for Gloucestershire, took six for 90. The rumbling about coaching at Harrow continued, with a letter urging that something be heard from A.C.MacLaren. The following day – 22 July – it was reported that a provisional agreement had been reached to install the Marconi wireless telegraphy system in ships. President Poincare’s visit to St Petersburg was being disrupted by labour troubles. The Shah had been crowned and M Caillaux was giving evidence at his wife’s trial.