that during that period nobody exerts himself, and the grandest of all games degenerates into a burlesque.
There is something at once tragic and pathetic in the case of Richardson, the great Surrey fast bowler. Richardson, in my judgment, as a purely fast bowler—that is a bowler who bowled almost one uniform fast pace—was the finest fast bowler of all cricket history: Jackson, Freeman, Richardson—the greatest of these is Richardson. A short time ago I ventured to prophesy that the amount of work Richardson had to do must produce a premature break-down, and the particular fact I had in my mind was his second visit to Australia. Richardson's grandest work, which no fast bowler has ever equalled, was crowded into four glorious years, but during those four years, when the weather was hot and the wickets hard, he bowled in first-class matches alone something like 6000 overs, and it requires only an elementary knowledge of physiology to see that such work cannot last. The career, therefore, of this grandest of all fast bowlers was a short four years. Lockwood and Jones may per-
