LETTER

Written directly after the Yale Game on Saturday, from Johnny Bruiser, Yale '81, to his Friend Betton Surety at New Haven.

BOSTON, November 20, 1880.MY DEAR BET. - You may thank your lucky stars that you did not accompany the team to Boston; for, although we won the game, and succeeded in laying up two of Harvard's men in addition, still we were treated throughout with that spirit of unfairness which always has been and, I suppose, always will be a characteristic of Harvard.

In the first place, you know the fellows had given me several hundred dollars to put up on the game, knowing that we had a pretty sure thing of it; and they had particularly asked me to get odds of at least five to one, as somebody had told them that Harvard would probably back her team; but the very first Harvard man I struck had the impudence to laugh in my face, and ask me "how I had the cheek to ask for odds when our team had beaten Columbia thirteen goals and six touch-downs to nothing, while Harvard had only beaten her three goals and two touch-downs." Of course I could not talk with a man who argued in such a pig-headed, unreasonable way; so I merely said nothing, but passed on to the next crowd, only to meet with the same ungentlemanly reception. I finally induced a crowd of Freshmen to put up three hundred dollars, at odds of three to one, - and probably could not have done that if they had not been drunk, - but that was the only bet I made, as I could not find anybody else who would give me better than two to one, and I knew the fellows would never consent to that. But it shows just what sort of fellows the Harvard men are, - they never will bet a cent unless they have a perfectly fat thing.

But the betting was no circumstance to the rest of their behavior. By some underhand means or other they have induced that fellow, Blazes, - who played last year on the Princeton team, - to play back on their eleven; got him into their medical school or some such measly trick, - in all probability, just to play against us, - and before they had been playing half an hour, he nearly got into a fight with our man, Jack Hardcase, who, as you know, is one of the most gentlemanly men that ever played on our eleven. You see Jack ran at Blazes when Blazes did not have the ball, and kicked his shins so as to distract his attention, and give our man, Drinkoff, a chance to make a touch-down; and, by Jove! I really thought for a minute that Blazes was going to hit him, as he probably would have done if somebody had not pulled him off; and the Harvard men would have backed him up in it too.

It was just after this that Blazes again displayed his brutish instincts by assaulting our man, Scamp, who, in some way, had got behind Harvard's goal posts and was waiting there for Fill-full to kick the ball to him, so that he could get a touch-down, - a very pretty little play which our fellows constantly employ with great effect, - but the minute Blazes discovered him, he rushed at him, grabbed him by the head, almost breaking the poor fellow's neck, and threw him back on side as if he had been a dead cat.

And even when Mutton kicked a goal from the field, after two of Harvard's team were knocked up, and their places taken by substitutes, they were mean enough to say it was "luck," and "they played as good a game as we did." For my part, I could not see that their rushers did any thing but commit a series of brutal assaults upon our men, who are deserving of great credit for the plucky manner in which they withstood the unwarranted attacks.

Between us, Bet., old boy, there can't be many society men at Harvard, for, of all the crowd on the field, I did not see a single Harvard man with a society badge on his hat-band, or on the lapel of his coat. Rather different from our fellows, eh?

Yours, in the bonds, & c.,

JOHNNY BRUISER.