The annual meeting of the Counties Chess Association will be held at Manchester during the week commencing the 31st inst. Intending competitors should address the honorary secretary, the Rev. A. B. Skipworth, Tetford Rectory, Horncastle, who will afford them every information respecting entrance fees, place of meeting, and the conditions of the several tourneys arranged for the occasion. Liberal prizes have been provided, and it is confidently expected that the meeting will be largely attended by London and provincial amateurs. Liverpool and Manchester will each furnish contingents, strong alike in numbers and in skill; and, as the Yorkshire towns are likely to follow the example of their rivals in Lancashire, a most successful meeting may be anticipated.

It is stated that a match has been arranged between Mr. Blackburne and M. Rosenthal, the well-known Parisian master, for a stake of £100. The match is to be played in September or October in Paris.

Captain Mackenzie arrived in London from Vienna last week, accompanied by Messrs. Blackburne and Mason, none of them, we are glad to say, looking aught the worse for their six weeks' hard chess-playing. The American champion purposes visiting Aberdeen, his native city, returning to London next month, en route for St. Louis, when, together with Messrs. Blackburne and Mason, he will be entertained at dinner by the City of London Chess Club. No better representative of metropolitan chess than that association exists. Its doors are always open to visitors from abroad, and the quality of its hospitality is proverbial.

The English and American players speak in grateful terms of the courtesy extended to them by Baron Kolisch during their visit to Vienna, No pains were spared by him to entertain them during their brief intervals of leisure, and the hospitality of Kahlenberg was as unstinted as it was gracious.

Source: The Illustrated London News, No.2254—Vol. LXXXI, Saturday, July 15, 1882, p.74