THE OLD FOOT-BALL PLAYER.

The following article, taken from the London Globe, gives an interesting account of the old English foot-ball player and the roughness of the game then played : "The old foot-ball player, although by no means of necessity an old man, is rather a melancholy spectacle, looked at from his own point of view. He haunts the scenes of his past exploits in the same enthusiastic, but saddened and tame, manner in which the retred tallow chandler of old story haunted New-gate-street on melting days, and imbued with very much the same feelings. He feels amply qualified to join the active throng before him ; he feels an almost irrepressible inclination to throw himself in the midst of the play, just as some people of peculiar nervous constitutions can never see an expense train dashing by a platform without an insane desire to jump at it. His hair has no touch of gray about it, his step is elastic, he still sticks to his cricket or rowing club, he is in every way a healthy, active, full-spirited man, and yet when he looks on at a foot-ball match as a mere passive spectator, the idea crossed his mind that he is old before his time, and he almost wishes that he had some really self-satisfying excuse to justify his inactivity.

Why did he give up foot-ball ? Perhaps because he married and felt it inconsistent with the dignity of the father of a family to be rolling about in the mud after a piece of leather. Perhaps because his common-sense warned him that bones broken at thirty do not heal so readily as at eighteen. Perhaps because he felt that he really was being passed by the rising generation. Perhaps because with his additional years, additional responsibilities, professional or domestic, have been thrown upon him. He knows he was right in giving up the grand old game for one or all of these reasons, but he regrets having done so all the same, especially when he is looking on at it. A man's foot-ball life is short, but it is very merry, and his memories and reminiscences are often very curious and interesting when looked at by the light of the present day-curious and interesting, that is, for those who admire the game, who do not taboo it as brutal because they cannot see its science, and who remember that to every man who hunts there are a thousand who play foot-ball, and that the percentage of accidents in the hunting field very far exceeds that of foot-ball accidents. He still reads that famous chapter descriptive of the schoolhouse match in "Tom Brown"-a chapter which, next to the other famous one concerning the fight between Tom and Slogger Williams, has been more read by English boys than any other of any other book in the language-as he used to read it at school. He recalls the private school matches-games of the mildest description, pursued under the immediate eye of a master. He remembers his transfer to the world of public school foot-ball the punt about between hours, the compulsory game, the matches for "cock house," the foreign matches, the Old Boys' match, and finally the ecstatic moment when he found himself elected to the dignity of a cap. That cap be still preserves among the curios in his smoking-room and perhaps regards in with greater affection than anything else, inasmuch as it speaks to him of a part of his active life which is irrevocably past.

The utmost limit of this stage of his experience may be but twenty years ago, and yet he may remember a few things which sound curiously now-a-days Blackheath was then, as now, the great centre of metropolitan foot-ball, although for every match played then on a Saturday afternoon there are now half-a-dozen. Those were the days of "hacking," and scenes which were frequent enough then, nay, which were almost inevitable, would not be tolerated now in the rowdiest of grounds. It was then by no means an uncommon sight to see the ball flying away in one part of the field, while the forward players were crowded together in a heap hacking at each others' shins like fiends ; it was by no means rare to see a man rushing at full pace with the ball toward the enemy's goal-ling, while a back-player, instead of seizing him below the waist and throwing him, calmly waited for him and hacked him over. Men used to leave a match in those days with the blood streaming through their stockings, and if there was not a stand-up fight or two during the course of the proceedings, it might be noted as an unusual occurrence. Old Blackheath residents may call to mind one memorable Saturday afternoon when, after a match between two rival teams from the establishments of two rival Woolwich "crammers," the peaceful village was actually in a state of siege during two hours on account of a melee between these gentlemen and their adherents : the police being only with the greatest difficulty able to quell the riot. But although battue shooting and pigeon slaying have been developed since then, we have got to be much more humane with regard to our foot-ball, and a had hack now is an exceptional circumstance. The game in fact-whether Rugby or Association-has undergone a complete metamorphosis. "Passing" the ball was a practice utterly unknown ; the art of "packing" a scrimmage was in its infancy ; the laws of "off-side" were crude and unsatisfactory. So also with the Association game, "middling," "corner kicks," "head play" were not known ; the men played where they liked, and there was little or none of that organization of the field which is now deemed absolutely necessary in order to ensure success.

All these changes the "old" foot-ball player has seen, and, whatever sneaking fondness he may have for the game as played in his day, he is ready to acknowledge that it is played more scientifically now. But he will tell us that the game is more of a business than it was."