A CENTURY OF CENTURIES.
[By scoring 288 in the match Gloucester v. Somerset at Bristol, on May 17, Mr. W. G. Grace, now nearing his 47th birthday, made his hundredth innings of 100 runs or over in first-class matches.]
"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
Sang Punch on the seventeenth instant May,
With a true Jabberwockian chortle,
As he saw the swipe, on the Bristol ground,
Which worked Grace's hundred of centuries round;
A record ne'er equalled by mortal.
"My beamish boy"—of nigh forty-seven—
There isn't a cheerier sight under heaven
Than W. G. at the wicket.
When your "vorpal" bat "goes snicker-snack,"
Punch loves to lie, with a tree at his back,
And watch what he calls Cricket.
And now, as a topper of thirty years,
After many hopes, and a few faint fears.
(Which Punch never shared for a jiffy.)
You've done the trick! Did your pulse beat quick
As you crept notch by notch within reach of the nick?
Did even your heart feel squiffy?
Punch frankly owns his went pit-a-pat
While he followed the ball and watched your bat
As the nineties slowly tottled;
And the boys of the Bristol Brigade held breath,
In an anxious silence as still as death.
But oh! like good fizz unbottled,
We all "let go" with a loud "hooray"
As the leather was safely "put away"
For that hundredth hundred. Verily,
Now you're the "many centuried" Grace!
And for many a year may you keep top place,
Piling three-figure innings right merrily!
Game from the Highlands.—A "Scotch Golfer of Twenty Years' Standing" (poor man! he certainly ought to be invited to take the chair at any Golf meeting!) writes to the Liverpool Daily Post complaining that novices in England will persist in sounding the letter "l" in the title of the sport, "although on every green from John o' Groats to Airlie it remains silent in the mouth of player and caddie alike." As the Golfer "puts" it, the name should be "goff," or even "gowf." As long as there is plenty of acreage for the game, an "ell" is not worth mentioning.
Musical Note of "Herr Willy Burmester"—or "Our" Willy. "Bless you!" as the old salt said; "he fiddles like a angel!" Of course, like all violinists, the hair of his head is peculiar, but his airs on his violin are marvellous in execution.
University Privilege not generally known.—When a resident Oxonion is suffering from a bronchial attack he is entitled to the professional attendance (gratis) of "The Curators of the Chest."
Extra-ordinary Self-annihilating Cannibals.—Children, when they over-eat themselves.