James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annnual 1881

T H EL A T EM R. G E O R G EF R E D E R I C K G R A C E . 7 the captain , who faced each other at the boundary on either side in the long -field , who should do the most work and save most runs , no one could havedecided to w h o mto give the palm. It is strange that his badluck in scoring should have occurred in this memorablematch, as G. F. very seldom had met the Australians that he did not leave his mark both in batting andbowling ; and it is no secret that they looked on him as the most dan- gerous all -round m a n' in England. The spectacles ' m a y fairly be attributed to incipient illness ; but it matters little now, as the verdict of all Englandis , that one of the greatest nameson the scroll of cricket famehas disappeared from the score book, and it will be proudly remembered half a century hence by men then alive who saw him on many a cricket ground. Setting aside G. F.'s extraordinary catch which disposed of Bonnor, and which, accurately chained , measured 115 yards as a minimum;* his fielding in the Harleyford corner did as much towards the winning of this match as most things ; the fielding was very severe labour ; and even he complained of fatigue , owing to the hardness of the ground, the extreme heat of the sun, the utter impossibility to get a breath of air on account of the dense crowdat Harleyford corner, and moreover, the ceaseless noise and chattering of the people ; and, after the second innings of the Australians , before going in, he remarked to the writer of this article , that he was tired out. A n dw eall rememberthat within a fortnight of the victory over Australia , in which he took so great a part , his comrades of the cricket field , who were playing at the Crystal Palace against the Australians , each wore a bow or bandof black crêpe in memoryof one of the finest all -round young cricketers ever seen . Thelocal papers tell us that 3,000 or 4,000 people followed himto his last home, and as far as we can read facts from the faces of those w e met and saw, and from accounts of trustworthy speakers and writers who saw and heard whatoccurred at homeand abroad, the sorrow for his early death was not the conventional ' poor -fellow ' pity of the world , but a feeling of sincere regret for the loss of a CHAMPIONupon whoseescutcheon there was no stain , and a feeling of deep sympathy for the family who survive him. The grand banquet at the Mansion Housefor a few intervals became a funeral feast , and the dead silence and attention which marked the short and touching mention of the dead cricketer by the chairman and the Australian and English captains , showed how real public feeling was. Reverting to his cricketing career- -his loss to Gloucestershire is irreparable at the present moment, and will be felt for manya year to come. Oneof a trio , whosecombinations in the field were equal to the strength of half of most elevens , is gone. Speaking in round numbersfor a dozen years past, the three brothers had played so often together in the greatest matches in England , and knew one another's points so well , that they regularly upset the calculations of all the best cricketers in the world. N othree m e never m a d esuch a mark-whenone went on to bowl, the other two knewexactly whatto do. W h e nW. G. went on with the ' medium-round,' and E. M. was *I chained the distance myself with two of the ground m e n. T w oruns were finished before the ball cameinto G. F.'s hand; the ball at its greatest height 'hung' in the air. A similar thing happenedat Canterbury , whenFlowers caught Mr. F. Penn -an extraordinary running catch last August . William Pilch , nephew of Fuller Pilch, drewm yattention to it, andtold m eof a similar case atLord's whenhewaslong- stop, andran as hard as he could to the Pavilion on the chance of saving the fourer when theball dropped , as it was a tremendous ' skyer ,' and seeing the ball hang ' he made a desperate run for the catch , and just got his hands to it and held it ,for which he received eight sovereigns ! andhe said he should like that job every day.