In connection with the game’s advance, it would be unjust not to acknowledge the fillip that has been given to it by the periodical visits of Australian elevens, the first of which occurred as far back as 1878, combined with the return of their calls by our men. It was a new truth to us that there was growing up in Greater Britain a race of men who, taught by ourselves, profiting by our lessons, and in the process of time perhaps improving on our methods, were able to withstand us to our face, the pupil often proving the superior of the master; and it may be that to this fact, and the perhaps unconscious conviction that “the old man” must not be “beaten by the boy” at cricket as at chess, is due the uprise of county cricket as the readiest means of ascertaining our strength and organising our resources, though it was not till several years after the first visit of Australians that any real attempt to organise county cricket into a formal competition succeeded. Such an attempt had been made in 1872 by the Marylebone Cricket Club, which offered a cup in that year for competition among the counties, but the offer was coldly received, the counties that entered were so few that such words as “competition” and “championship” became misnomers, and the offer was withdrawn. Not that the word “champion” had not been and still was applied to some county or another as soon as the last ball of the season had been bowled, but the expression was visionary; it was merely the outcome of the views of the press or of individuals, and it naturally happened that when these views conflicted there were “two Richmonds in the field,” both styled champion by their respective supporters. It was not till the representatives of counties met in peaceful conclave, coded laws and bye-laws, with the request that the M.C.C. would exercise a fatherly and presidential rule over county cricket, that the latter became historical fact.