Foot Ball in Canada.

In Canada the season for foot ball commences about the middle of September, and extends to the same time in November. Lacrosse, Base Ball, Cricket, and Aquatics find a natural death in the uncertain weather of the early fall, and athletic enthusiasm, which the impossibility of its gratification in the direction of the above noted sports does not by any means lessen, is turned to foot ball.

The season which has just closed has been one of the most successful in the history of foot ball in Canada. The active interest taken in the game has greatly increased during the past year, many new clubs have sprung up and come into prominence, and scores of new players been developed The same may be said of the interest taken in the game by the general public, or from a spectator's point of view. The dozens which a year or two since made up the audience at a first class match have now become hundreds.

As a necessary result of the growing popularity of the game, the quality and style of play have been of late very much altered and improved. Especially may this be said to be the case with Rugby foot ball, as a single fact will well evidence. The champion team of last year, the Torontos, were this year badly defeated by the Brittanias of Montreal whom they last year vanquished ignominiously. The personnel of both teams was nearly the same in both matches. The result on the last occasion of this meeting being attributed to be totally different, and as results showed improved style of play adopted by the Britannia Club.

Turning to Association Foot Ball, which cannot fail, its good qualities having been fairly tested, to become as popular with you as it has with us. The game has advanced with much greater strides than the Rugby game, and bids fair to become the favorite. The playing of it is not confined to the fall season, it is taken up with equal vigor in the spring, and in some parts of Ontario is played throughout the entire year, winter and all. The game is confined almost exclusively to Ontario. Here we have fifty or more first-class clubs, the majority of them belonging to either of two Associations, an Eastern and a Western. The deciding of the championship of each of the Associations is the means of creating rivalry which does much towards the advancement of the game.

This scheme of drawing all prominent clubs into one Association has been followed in Ontario by the Rugby clubs and much benefit has resulted from the arrangement. Healthy rivalry has been promoted, and the rules of play which prior to the formation of the Association were arbitrary and ill defined, have been taken hold of with a strong hand, altered, improved and well-defined. The Association is known as the Ontario Rugby Union, and is under the control of an executive committee. It embraces the principal Rugby clubs of the province. Prominent among these are the city clubs of Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and Kingston, and the college clubs of Toronto, Trinity, and the Kingston Universities. By the usual methods of rounds of tie matches, the championship of the Association and the possession of a handsome trophy, emblematic of the championship is annually decided. This much coveted honor for the past two seasons has fallen to the Toronto club. The majority of this club are also active members of the Argonaut Rowing Club of this city which numbers among its members, as those of your readers aquatically inclined will remember the champion American as well as Canadian amateur four. By this means the opening of the foot ball season always finds the Toronto team in the best of condition, and in this respect they have some advantage over the majority of their opponents.

Rugby Foot Ball as played in Canada to-day, is substantially the same game as that introduced years ago. The American Association or open formation game was brought in some five years since, but at no time met with such favor as to supplant its parent.

Fifteen players still compose a team. The customary arrangement of these players on the field is thus: one fullback, two half-backs, two quarterbacks, and ten forwards. The game generally played is a heavy scrimmage game, with, in some cases, an intentional tendency to looseness in the scrimmages. The most important places on a team are the quarters, and without a pair of good quarters, a team, however strongly the other positions may be filled, is weak. As soon as the scrimmage is broken, the ball is snatched by one of the quarter-backs, carried forward, or else passed back to one of the half-backs, who play well up, for him to do so.

Reference has been made to improvement made in the game during the season past. These may be noted as follows: placing two forwards on a line with the scrimmage and playing in the scrimmage with the idea not so much of playing the ball forwards, as sidewards to these unchecked men. This play is a great advantage when adopted by one side only, and could not prove very effective otherwise. Much cannot be said in favor of the change, it leads to loose scrimmaging which means excessive roughness in the game. Another improvement, and one more properly so-called, is that in drop-kicking and punting by the whole team, and particularly those playing behind the forwards. No change has been made in the score by points. The present system and the value of the particular plays is generally approved of.

In closing, we note with pleasure the visit of a Canadian Association Foot Ball team to St. Louis during the present month, and suppress the hope that ere next season closes, we may see an American and a Canadian team oppose one another in the game of Rugby.