Part 31

It is an interesting enough historical fact with regard to the greatest leg-twist bowlers, that their careers have generally been extremely brief. Mr. Palmer seems to have lost his length owing to his cultivation of the leg-twist. Mr. R. C. Ramsay, in 1882, was for Cambridge University a terror for a few weeks, and Messrs. C. L. Townsend, the late E. A. Nepean, and the brothers Steel, have all had great successes by this method in their time, but, somehow, no cricketer seems to have succeeded in the craft of bowling leg-twisters for a very long time, with the notable exception of Mr. Warwick Armstrong, who, during the last Australian tour in this country, bowled no less than 1,027 overs, of which 308 were maiden overs.

Joe Vine can point to a couple of very fine bowling performances. In 1901 he took sixteen wickets at Nottingham—eight in each innings—for 161 runs, and so enabled Sussex to win at Trent Bridge for the first time for forty years. In 1902, at Hastings, against the Australians, he took 7 wickets for 31 runs; but sad to say, in 1905 the 21 wickets he captured for his county cost over 41 runs apiece!

Mr. L. G. Wright, the veteran Derbyshire cricketer, justly enough, is one of the selected five, and although he is now over 44 years of age, he is by common consent held to be the best “point” amongst first-class fieldsmen of to-day. He stands close up to the batsman, and his agility and quickness are quite astonishing, for of recent years perfect wickets and academic batsmanship have rendered the post of point proper all but obsolete.

An interesting feature of Mr. Wright’s cricket is, that like a good vintage wine, it appears to improve with age. He first played for Derbyshire in 1883, and since 1887 he has been a regular member of the team when he could play, and last year, in his twenty-second season, he came out easily top of the county averages, with an aggregate of 1,651 runs for 38 innings, giving an average of 43 runs per innings.

Amongst other big performances he scored a century in each innings against Warwickshire at Birmingham. He scored 176 out of 323 in the first innings and followed on with 122 out of 197, in first and out last.

We understand that a very influential committee has been formed to organise a testimonial, and we wish the scheme every success. Probably, Mr. Wright holds the record of having played upon the losing side in more county matches than any other cricketer, and so his sustained good play for Derbyshire is all the more commendable.

George Thompson is another star cricketer who has lent much importance to the doings of a weak team, and it is not too much to say that, but for Thompson, Northamptonshire could not have last year gained admission to the first class. Since his first appearance in 1895 he has put in consistently good work both with ball and bat, and, whether for his county, or for the Players, or the Marylebone Club, he is always one of the most useful men on a side, as he also proved himself to be when, with Mr. Warner’s team in New Zealand, he took 177 wickets at a cost of under seven runs a-piece, and, in the West Indies, with Lord Brackley’s team, he took 126 wickets for ten runs a-piece.

Those tried and valuable cricketers, Walter Lees and David Denton, complete the gallery of five, and it may well be said of them that if they had played more often in the test matches of last season no one would have been surprised. In the absence of Mr. MacLaren, Denton was included in the England team at Leeds, but it was not one of his lucky days. Lees was reserve man on each occasion, without actually playing in any of the matches. At the time of writing Denton is the mainstay of the batting line of Mr. P. F. Warner’s team in South Africa, and it is just as well for the party that the Yorkshireman should find himself in luck.

There are some interesting personal reminiscences of the late Mr. R. A. H. Mitchell, written by Mr. Russell Walker and another old cricketer; and Captain W. J. Seton contributes a very complete article upon public school cricket. The list of cricket records is a rapidly increasing feature of the general information supplied by the editor, and now extends to some twenty-two pages, whilst no fewer than seventeen pages are taken up by short obituary notices of cricketers who died in 1905, there being many well-known names in the sad list. The record of the year’s cricket is more voluminous than ever, and the full doings and analyses of the Australian tour run into sixty-two pages.

In the records of the Australian wicket-keepers we are surprised to notice that whilst Kelly caught 19 and stumped 7, Newland caught 12 and stumped 7, and yet Newland was regarded by everybody as very considerably inferior to Kelly, and kept wicket upon comparatively few occasions.

It is rather remarkable that of the many cricketers who played against the Australians only two bowled more than 100 overs against them, and these two, Mr. W. Brearley and Wilfred Rhodes, bowled 214 and 208 overs respectively. The bowler who bowled the highest number of overs next to these two is Haigh, with 99·4 overs, so that he was only short of 100 overs by two balls.

Mr. Brearley, with 37 wickets, got nearly twice as many Australian wickets as any one else, and Jack Hearne gets the best average with 7 wickets for 67 runs.

Mr. J. N. Crawford, the Repton and Surrey cricketer, supplies an interesting page in cricket history. Up to the end of July he was Captain of the Repton XI., and scored for his school 766 runs for an average of 85·11, and took 51 wickets at an average cost of 12·96. After this he was able in the few remaining weeks of the season to play enough first-class cricket to amass 543 runs, with an average of 33·93, and to take 47 wickets, his bowling average of 18·46 placing him eighth in the list of English bowlers. We cannot call to mind a parallel case of a school-boy doing such an exceptional amount of good work, both in school cricket and county cricket, in the same season. It would appear that the only thing to have prevented Mr. Crawford from representing the Gentlemen against the Players was that Repton School had a prior claim upon his services. This winter Mr. Crawford is enjoying great success in South Africa, both with bat and ball, and his return to this country will probably be jealously awaited by the keenest members of the Surrey Club. The date of Mr. Crawford’s birth is given as December 1st, 1886, so he has time in his favour, anyway.

The study of _Wisden_ in the winter months is a fascinating pastime, but we have run on long enough, and must leave our readers to their own cogitations and musings over the book itself.

The second volume[7] of Professor Wortley Axe’s comprehensive work is now before us, and we may say at once that its contents maintain in every respect the high promise of its forerunner. Section III., dealing with the “Varieties of the Horse,” begun in the first volume, is completed, the majority of our breeds of ponies, the heavy horses and the foreign breeds most frequently imported being reviewed. The author regards the good representative Welsh pony as “one of the best and most serviceable animals” among his kind. It is unfortunately true that the Dartmoor, Exmoor and New Forest breeds, more especially the second, have been made the subject of so many experiments in crossing that the original type is become obscured, if not entirely lost. Sir Walter Gilbey has set out the history, or as much of it as can be discovered by assiduous and careful research, of our native breeds of ponies in one of his well-known books; and Professor Wortley Axe’s observations form a very able summary of all that has been written of the several breeds. The historical sketch of the Shire horse is also excellent; as regards the debated question of “feather” on the legs of the breed, the author urges that the desirability or the reverse of hair in quantity is a matter which should be left to practical men who are not likely to allow sentimental considerations to weigh with them. The author is not able to throw any fresh light on the origin of the Clydesdale; it would be surprising if he had, in view of the researches which have been undertaken with the object of elucidating the matter; what is known he epitomises with his usual conciseness and point. The Suffolk breed is hardly more satisfactory as an historical subject; it was certainly well-established in the earlier decade of the eighteenth century, and, without the possibility of doubt, was so at a much more remote date. The author is a warm admirer of the Suffolk, whose good qualities furnish him with the theme for one of his best chapters.

The Arab naturally leads the way among the foreign breeds noticed. The author adopts a judicial attitude concerning the merits of the breed; he appears to share the opinion of those who think the Arab susceptible of improvement, while he recognises the intrinsic qualities which render an Arab so valuable for crossing with our own light horses.

The greater portion of the volume is occupied by the veterinary chapters: those matters of which the reader must acquire knowledge as a condition of understanding the descriptions of symptoms, &c., which follow. We have, always in simple and lucid language to be understanded of the layman, most valuable and helpful chapters on the diseases to which the mouth, throat, stomach and intestines of the horse are liable. The descriptions are supplemented by excellent drawings, which cannot fail to be of service to the reader.

The illustrations, in colour or from photographs, are exceedingly good.

From the first part of “The Horse: Its Treatment in Health and Disease,” the following is quoted:—

THE HEAD AS A UNIT OF MEASUREMENT.

Ever since the days of Bourgelat the study of proportions in respect to the various regions of the horse has been vigorously pursued, especially by French hippotomists, and it is to the founder of veterinary schools we owe the first serious attempt to “establish the relation of the dimension which should exist between the parts of the body,” or, in other words, a law of proportion. As a result of numerous measurements, Bourgelat selected the head as a basis of proportion for all other parts, and the more recent researches of the distinguished _savant_, Colonel Duhousset, led him also to adopt this, and give it as a unit of measure.

The results of his observations are recorded by Goubaux and Barrier, from whose able work on “The Exterior of the Horse,” we extract the following list of proportions:—

_The length of the head almost exactly equals the distance_—

1st.—From the back to the abdomen N O, fig. 73 (thickness of the body).

2nd.—From the top of the withers to the point of the arm H E (shoulder.)

3rd.—From the superior fold of the stifle joint to the point of the hock J J.

4th.—From the point of the hock to the ground J K.

5th.—From the dorsal angle of the scapula to the point of the haunch D D.

6th.—From the xiphoid region to the fetlock joint M I; above this latter in large horses and race horses, below it in small horses and in those of medium size.

7th.—From the superior fold of the stifle joint to the summit of the croup in subjects whose coxofemoral angle is large; this distance is always less in other cases (G and B).

_Two and one-half times the head gives_—

1st.—The height of the withers H, above the ground.

2nd.—The height of the top of the croup above the ground.

3rd.—Very often the length of the body from the point of the arm to that of the buttock, E F.

The length of the croup from the point of the haunch to that of the buttock D F is always less than that of the head; this varies from 5 to 10 centimetres. As to its width from one haunch to another, it often exceeds only very little its length (often it is equal to the latter), G and B.

The croup, D F, exists quite accurately in length four times in the same horse.

1st.—From the point of the buttock to the inferior part of the stifle joint F P.

2nd.—In the width of the neck at its inferior attachment, from its insertion into the chest to the origin of the withers S X.

3rd.—From the insertion of the neck into the chest to the angle of the lower jaw X Q, when the head is held parallel to the shoulder.

4th.—Finally, from the nape of the neck to the nostril _n n_ or to the commissure of the lips.

The measure of one half of the head will also guide us very much in the construction of the horse, when we know that it is frequently applied to several of his parts, namely:—

1st.—From the most prominent point of the angle of the lower jaw to the anterior profile of the forehead before the eye, R Q (thickness of the head).

2nd.—From the throat to the superior border of the neck behind the poll Q L (attachment of the head).

3rd.—From the inferior part of the knee to the coronet, T T.

4th.—From the base of the hock to the fetlock, V U.

5th.—Finally, from the point of the arm to the articulation of the elbow (approximate length of the arm).

Two Noted Hunting Sires, Van Galen and Victor.

After the experiences of very nearly a century it was singular indeed that the Hunters’ Improvement Society and the Royal Commission on Horse-breeding cold-shouldered the idea that like has a tendency to get like. For twenty years no clause appeared in their schedules that the thoroughbred horse eligible for a premium should have been a turf performer of some kind or other, and so sires obtained honours that were simply laughed at by owners and trainers. Sam Darling, John Porter, the late J. Humphreys, and Mr. Ben Ellam have had their jokes over the things, as they have called them, that have satisfied the State. Humphreys used to chaff a breeder about one that he was certain could not have gone fast to keep himself warm, and yet he won three Queen’s Premiums, and was sold as a hunting sire for 500 sovs. The conditions have now been altered to a certain extent, as turf performances are given in the catalogues, and the judges are invited to take notice of them. A shorter and better plan would be to admit no horse into the entry that had not won a race worth 100 sovs., or, to make it still easier, one that had not been placed in such a race. This would make the franchise, so to speak, sufficiently low, as there is this to be taken into consideration, that winners in these times of any event that savours at all of consequence are so terribly expensive as to make hunting sires, of great turf class, difficult to secure. The great points to be gained, though, from a racing career is that they can go fast enough to live with other horses, and that they have stood the exigencies of training to test constitution, temper, and the strain on limbs. The more proof of all this the better, as, to quote the late Lord Portsmouth’s views—and there was no greater judge—the best hunting sire has invariably been the racing slave; the horse that has commenced at two years old and run everywhere and often until he is six or seven. Whether the best are those that have won long-distance races, or to have been simply the quick, sharp sprinters, are other questions; but it will be generally allowed that gameness over any course is a quality to be held greatly in esteem.

The old-fashioned breeders of hunters were, no doubt, imbued with the idea that stoutness as shown on the racecourse was the essential quality to be looked for, and they had plenty of examples on their side down to quite 1840. The Boston side of Lincolnshire was filled with good hunters early in the last century by a Cup winner of Lord Egremont’s, who had the misfortune to break his leg in running for a race at Ascot. When the gun was being brought out to put an end to him, a sporting blacksmith from Lincolnshire begged the life of the noble steed, and contrived a sling for him in a building hard by. It took four months to get the limb thoroughly set, and then the blacksmith walked the horse to Boston, where he developed into the best hunting sire of that quarter, and after fifteen years’ service the grateful farmers had the horse painted by the senior Ferneley, and presented the picture to the blacksmith. Such were the feelings or sentiments for great hunting sires a hundred years ago, and perhaps the country is indebted for the good foundation in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Shropshire, to such notable racers as Catton, Lottery, Clinker, the sire of the famous hunter of that name so memorable in the Melton matches, and the elder Clinker was second in the St. Leger of 1808, and got by Sir Peter the best horse of his day. It was said that Clasher, the successful rival in the great match with Clinker, was by the same sire, but other statements showed him to be by Clasher, another son of Sir Peter. Anyway, the two were closely related, and no two horses ever went over a stiffer four miles of country. Again, there was Cannon Ball, a winner of four mile races in his day, and the pride of the Quorn country as a sire, and was not Pan, the Derby winner of 1808, doing duty amongst the commoners of Shropshire in the days of Jack Mytton?

There is good reason to think that when the golden age of foxhunting was at its zenith the notable hunters were all by famous turf performers, and that the same views were taken in regard to hunter-breeding for the next five-and-twenty years. This would comprise the days of Perion in Yorkshire, Gainsborough in Devonshire, Doctor Syntax in Durham, Sir Peter Laurie in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, and Arthur in Ireland—the kind of horses, in fact, of proved class that were used to get hunters. After this the ready materials became somewhat mixed, though there were still exceptionally good sires in the ’fifties, ’sixties, and ’seventies, with such stock to their credit that may well have been called magnificent.

To select the best may be difficult when such names as Mogador, Lambton, Maroon, Ugly Buck, North Lincoln, Pride of Prussia, Allow-me, and Lord Derby recur to memory, but taking all into consideration, both for England and Ireland, I should say that preference could be given to the two V.’s, Van Galen and Victor. They were both born within the same decade, and just after the second half of the century had commenced, as Van Galen was foaled in 1853 and Victor in 1859. They were both also bred in Yorkshire, and it is possible that they became hunting sires more by accident than anything else. Van Galen gave early indications of being a good racehorse, as he was highly tried as a two-year-old, and won his first race, the Tyra Stakes, at Newcastle in a canter. Then he suffered defeat when 7 to 2 was laid on him, and he ran forward in the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster. Through some accident, he had to be thrown out of training during the ensuing winter, and early in life became a hunting sire. He was just the sort for that vocation—a big brown horse, standing, when grown to his best, rather over 16 hands, and his card used to disclose at a glance a fine old Yorkshire pedigree by Van Tromp, winner of the St. Leger, and got by Lanercost out of Barbelle (all Yorkshire by Sandbeck), the dam of the Flying Dutchman, the dam of Van Galen, Little Casino, by Inheritor, dam by Waverley. To the best of my recollection, Van Galen travelled through, the country that comprised Northallerton, Bedale, Middleham, and Harmby—much the same ground, in fact, that was covered by Perion thirty years before; and I bear in mind staying near the last-mentioned Village in 1867, and that the Van Galen hunters were then the talk of the country. Mr. Bruere, a gentleman who kept a charming little pack of harriers near Middleham, had a beautiful hunter by Van Galen called Charlie, for whom, it was said, £700 had been refused, and he was certainly one of the best-looking and most mannerly hunters I have ever seen. He was in some of the great hunt steeplechases of the ’sixties. So were many others of the Van Galen family.

I bear in mind a horse called Vanbrugh, of the same type, big, weight-carrying, bloodlike horses that were natural jumpers from the time they were foals, and no days were too long for them. This is the character they gained in Yorkshire, and Van Galen hunters were sought after as much as the Perions had been. Like many other greatly patronised hunting sires, the famous son of Van Tromp had few opportunities with thoroughbred mares, but a chance union with Sybil, a mare belonging to the late John Fohert, the trainer of the Flying Dutchman, produced quite the stoutest horse of his time as the winner of the Chester Cup, and dead-heater for the Ascot Cup with Buckstone, to whom he gave a lump of weight. Tim Whiffler was quite in the family order, a big brown horse, and pity it was that he was sold to Australia after he had got some very useful ones, including Footman, who was backed heavily to win a Grand National. If ever there was one horse more than another bred to get great cross-country performers, it was Tim Whiffler, as his dam, Sybil, was by the Ugly Buck, whose fame down Northamptonshire way as a hunting sire was almost equal to anything. It was in after generations that Van Galen’s name lived so long, as a second visit to Harmby twenty years afterwards gave strong evidence that breeders had no intention of dropping the line, and that his daughters and granddaughters were regarded in the highest esteem as hunter producers. Another son of Van Galen’s, too, was Ploughboy, who was out of a Stockwell mare, and he did capital service for some seasons when he stood at the Newbiggen House stables, Beverley.