The return of the New Zealand cricketers from England, where they established the Dominion's reputation on the flanneled field, has caused a great revival of interest in the national summer sport. It is therefore seasonable to produce the following vivid description of a thrilling and memorable cricket match, written by an “Aussie on his toes” to a New Zealand railwayman.

In 1924 the Third Test played in Australia was a heart thrill from start to finish—particularly the last innings, when the Englishmen, with 8 wickets down, were within 32 of the Australian total, when stumps were drawn at 6 p.m. on the sixth day of the match.

The Cricket Board of Control decided not to make a charge for admission the following day as play was not expected to last more than an hour. You can imagine the crowd that assembled on the Adelaide Oval. Practically every place in the city suspended business, and it is estimated that at 12 noon, 100,000 persons were within the boundaries of the Adelaide Oval.

Gilligan (captain) was one of the not–out–men, and that little chap (I cannot recall his name) the other.

J. M. Gregory took the ball, and after performing a number of kangaroo bounds to get his muscles supple, measured off his bowling distance. By this time the huge crowd was silent and holding its breath. The day was warm, clear, and cloudless, with not even the slightest zephyr to disturb the flight of the ball. Gregory, as if conscious of the fact that the match would not last many minutes, abandoned all care for his “gammy” knee and let himself go—reminiscent of the Gregory of 1920–1921. The first ball was not seen by either the batsman (Gilligan) or wicket—keeper (Oldfield) and, to the horror of the spectators, went for four byes—thus materially reducing the margin. Gilligan survived two more balls and scratched off a few runs, eventually “skying” one from a mishit. This Vic. Richardson caught—the simplest of catches, yet in the excitement he jumped three feet into the air. If he had dropped that ball the crowd would have leapt the pickets and rushed him, for although Vic. was a South Australian and a good man, he was not at that period popular with the crowd, who did not conceal their delight when he was put out for a “duck” or failed in some other way.

Strudwick—last man in—got a great reception, and swung his bat to the first ball from Gregory, but did not get within a yard of it and was the most surprised man in the place to see his wicket standing. Arthur Mailey was the bowler from the other end, and every ball from him was different and full of wile. At last one more deceptive than the other tricked the batsman, who flicked it. Oldfield gathered it in with his mighty reach, and before the crowd dared believe their eyes, he was halfway to the stand. Old Fox that he was, Oldfield knew that it was the fatal ball and he had it in safekeeping. Australia had won, but only just—about 11 runs to the good. It was then that the huge crowd surged over the pickets and across the ground, grabbing Mailey and carrying him shoulder high to the dressing room amidst volleys of cheers. An effort was made to grab Gregory, but he frustrated it, and his 6ft. 5in. of athletic manhood forbade the more daring element using force.

It was a great finale to a great match, and I do not think any 20 minutes has held me so spellbound before or since.

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The Runaway.

The recent press announcement of the death of Mr. James Sherbrook Hansen, formerly proprietor of the New Zealand Tribune, calls to mind some incidents in his career as a railway man in New Zealand; but none is likely to stir old memories more than that which occurred during the period between 1882 and 1885 when he was Stationmaster at Auckland.

The little “C” shunting engine was standing at the water tanks on the main line, when the locomotive intended to run the Waikato train came out of the siding with all cocks blowing. The steam from the cylinders obscured the view of the driver on the Waikato engine, and, not seeing the little “C” ahead of him, he bumped into it rather hard. At the time there was only the enginedriver (Mr. Bennett) on the “C” and the sudden jerk threw him out of the cab on to ground.

In falling he reached out suddenly for something to save him, and his hand fell on the regulator which although he failed to hold, he pulled over sufficiently to throw open. The result was that the “C” started off at a good pace towards Newmarket, with no one on board.

Mr. Hansen, who spied the incident from afar off, was nothing if not a man of action. He was interested in racehorse and had done some good riding in his time. He rushed out to the back of the station, seized a saddle-horse that was tethered there, and set off full tilt along the main line, chasing the run-away shunting engine.

The steed showed good mettle; the rider was keen, and, riding like Tod Sloan, it looked as if this novel method of dealing with the emergency might meet with due reward, when their course was suddenly held up by the Parnell overhead bridge which, not being planked, it was beyond the skill of man and horse to negotiate. The result was that, in spite of his resource, the rider was left at one end of the bridge while the run-away locomotive passed over beyond the other. Consternation existed, as the Onehunga train was due to come in on the same track.

Fortunately, although the two engines certainly came together in the Parnell tunnel, there had not been much steam up on the “C” and the work of climbing the hill had rather exhausted it, so that when the collision occurred the impact was not serious.

It is, of course, unthinkable that such an incident should recur. But if by any mischance an engine should break away nowadays on the same section of line, the automatic signalling would warn the driver of any oncoming train and he could take the necessary precautions to prevent anything serious happening. In that respect, present day working conditions, although perhaps less thrillingly romantic, are infinitely safer than in the days gone by, which, after all, is the main objective in transportation.

Lifting A Railway Bridge.

No undertaking in our day is apparently too big to be carried through successfully by the engineer. Whether it be the construction of a great ship canal, the boring of a tunnel a dozen miles through a mountain, shifting a skyscraper intact to a new site, or building flying machines of a speed capacity of 300 miles per hour, the engineer is the man responsible for these wonderful achievements.

An engineering feat surpassing in magnitude anything of the kind previously attempted in the Southern Hemisphere, and one of considerable interest to railwaymen, was recently satisfactorily carried out at Kafue, in Northern Rhodesia, some 2,000 miles from Cape Town.

In order to protect the Kafue Railway Bridge from the floods which threatened its safety every year it was decided to raise the entire structure -1,398 feet in length and weighing 910 tons-five feet above the foundations on which it had rested for twenty years. The bridge consists of thirteen spans and is one of the longest in Africa. Twenty-eight hydraulic jacks (placed in position under saddling girders which joined the spans together) were employed to lift the bridge. Each jack was manned by two natives under the guidance of a European. At a given signal the huge bridge was raised to the required height in individual lifts of ten inches. Great wooden wedges were employed to take the weight off the jacks after each lift, these being removed after a concrete block had been cemented in position on each pier. The lifting operations were so arranged that traffic was able to pass over the bridge after each lift of ten inches had been completed-the permanent way being raised the required distance for this purpose.

The work was carried out under the direction of Mr. Rigley, the bridge engineer of the Beire Mashonaland and Rhodesian Railway and its successful accomplishment is a remarkable testimony to the efficiency of modern engineering methods.