and it was strikingly enforced on that occasion. Kent batted first, scoring 473. M.C.C. made 144 first innings, and followed on at five o'clock of the second day. "Let me begin the bowling," said Absolom; "I'm in rare form, and strong enough for anything." After six hours' fielding next day, when I had scored 300 runs, and every one of the Kent Eleven showed the effects of the long outing, he was as eager as ever and kept beseeching to be allowed to have another trial!
Rarely have I seen a man of such excellent physique and staying powers. In the Inter-University contests, in 1867, he won the broad jump for Cambridge, clearing 22 ft. 2 in.; and on another occasion he cleared 21 ft. 2 in. More than once he "put" the 16-lb. shot 32 feet, and he is said to have thrown the cricket-ball over 100 yards; he was also successful on the running path. He did excellent work for his county, and we can also all recall the just and touching acknowledgment of it made by Lord Harris when the news arrived of his untimely death on board the steamer Muriel on the 27th July, 1889. He said: "A generation of cricketers is short-lived: but though it is ten years since 'Bos' played his last match for the county, there must be thousands of onlookers who can remember what a safe pair of hands were his; what a successful, if not very difficult, bowler he was occasionally; what good service he did many a time in his own peculiar but vigorous style with the bat; and last, but not least, how he always played up for his side. At any rate, there are many lovers of the game in Kent who will gratefully remember the yeoman service he rendered the county from 1875 to 1879. I had the good fortune to be able to induce him to play for the county. It brought me more than a right sturdy comrade in the cricket-field: it brought me a sincere, true-hearted friend, whose early death I, and all who knew him, deeply deplore."
