The winter of 1882 saw a mixed team of amateurs and professionals, under captaincy of the present writer, start for a tour in Australia. The all-round strength of the side was very considerable, but only four of their number had been chosen to represent England in the previous summer. However, as the remainder included Morley, Bates, W. W. Read, and Tylecote, the paper form was undoubtedly strong, and had not illness and accident, especially the unfortunate mishap which more or less crippled Morley, their only first-class fast bowler, been unfortunately frequent, an even better record than the respectable results achieved might have been realised. A rubber of three matches was played with the victorious 1882 Australian eleven, and after each had easily won a match, the decisive game ended at Sydney in the victory of England by 69 runs. Cricket enthusiasm was at a very high pitch in Australia at this time, the first victory of Australia over England having greatly excited the public mind, and the attendance at the test matches exceeded all previous records. The rubber having now been won by England, a suggestion was made that another match should be arranged, and one or two players included in the Australian side who had not been to England with Murdoch. Evans and Midwinter were accordingly chosen to take the places of Garrett and Macdonnell, and, although it seemed highly doubtful if this change was calculated to be for the better, its advocates would doubtless claim the justification of their choice in the Australian victory which resulted by four wickets. Fifty-five thousand people were supposed to have witnessed the play during the four days that the match occupied, and a new plan was adopted of having a fresh wicket for each of the four innings. This was necessitated by the peculiar nature of the Sydney turf, a thick-bladed, flat-growing grass, which looked perfectly smooth, but wore very badly. These four matches showed the Australians hardly perhaps in their best form, but Bonnor, Bannerman, and, in the last match, Blackham, did some excellent service in batting, especially the first-named. His hitting in three out of the four matches was terrific, and most difficult to deal with, as our English eyes were not so well able, in the very clear atmosphere of these latitudes, to judge the many high twisting catches which he impartially presented to various fieldsmen. In an innings of 87 in the fourth match he was supposed to have been missed eight or ten times, and several of these misses were to be laid to the charge of a usually very safe fieldsman who shall be nameless. The demoralising effect of such a succession of disasters on our bowlers and fieldsmen may be well imagined, and the problem of how long a bowler should be kept on who is having a chance missed off him nearly every over presented itself in its most perplexing form to our captain.