Foot-Ball.

This, the third article on foot-ball from the January number of Outing, is written by Walter Camp of Yale, and presents the subject to us in a little different light from that of the two preceding papers:-

"To one reviewing the past season of foot-ball, nothing stands out so clearly as the immense progress the game has made in popular favor. While men who have been actual players will always enjoy anything that resembles their favorite sport, the large majority of people demand, and have been demanding for years, certain reforms in foot-ball, before installing it finally in their minds as the sport par excellence of the Thanksgiving season.

"Step by step such reforms have been taking place in the American game, but it remained for the season of 1887 to inaugurate the most radical, as well as the most successful measures. Graduates of the colleges sent a representative before the convention in the summer, and asked the Association to adopt a constitution, in which should be incorporated these two salient features: A change to two referees, and the appointment of one of these to be in the hands of graduates. The Association most willingly adopted the suggestion of the alumni, and the result has been more satisfactory than even the most sanguine of its advocates had dared to hope. Not only did a representative audience of eighteen thousand people witness a most magnificent contest between our two universities, but also, that audience and the public press had nothing but words of praise for the game itself. Such an event could not but greatly conciliate the college faculties, and many even of our most staid New England parents forgot the loss of the old-fashioned home Thanksgiving in the enthusiasm of their boys over the match.

"There is one thing which we have thus far passed over, but which is destined, if it continue, to make great trouble and leave an ugly mark on the American game. This is interference. It is something which has grown rapidly in the last three years, and which, if not legislated against, will threaten the very life of the game. It is not to be rushed hurriedly against and cut out by rules whose after affect no one can measure, but it is the duty of every true foot-ball player to give his best attention at once to such action as shall confine the abuse, in order that before another season the evil shall have passed away. While it is considered at the present day an excellent play for two rushers to stand shoulder to shoulder in their line in front of their runner, and as he comes forward to open his path by turning away from one another at the instant he comes, the abuse of such tactics is wrong, and it never is, and never can be, good foot-ball to not only push and drag rushers out of the way, but even to butt, seize and pull to one side ends and halves who are running across to tackle. It is no exaggeration to say that this is, even now, not the exception, but almost the custom, in spite of the rulings of the umpires. In fact, these very men who should have stopped this have ruled too carelessly upon interference, while being very stringent regarding foul tackling and slugging. No umpire can bee too harsh in ruling upon striking, nor indeed upon actual foul tackling; but seizing a man at his hips is perfectly fair and legitimate, as is also seizing him about the head, providing he be not choked. So hard has been the ruling this season that many a fine tackler is absolutely afraid to take a man at any spot except almost under the arms. A waist tackler is fearful lest the umpire think him too low; and as for a fair hip tackler-the best, by the way, of any method, because surest, and less likely to injure the man-he has been practically shut out altogether. A captain is almost afraid to call out the old watch-word "Tackle low," lest the umpire and the crowd think he is advocating something unfair. Again, regarding high tackling, while it is not a good way to get at a runner, nor at all a sure way, there is no rule forbidding it."

"Never before has a foot-ball season presented such markedly different types of one and the same game. Harvard with her running strength and weight played a rushing game in its most aggressive form, while Princeton with her light runners and nimble dodgers showed to what a point the angle game might be carried. Finally Yale with a decidedly mixed team demonstrated the superiority of tieing to no one method by winning the championship by a combination of several. Harvard's style is a product of the last few years, and retains not a vestige of the game as played by the Cambridge teams in the seventies. The kicking has been forgotten or ignored and all attention centered upon the running game, the key of which is 'make a hole for a man and then crowd him through it.' They even put all but two men in their rusher line when their opponents get the ball in order to regain possession of it.

"Princeton's game is the one handed down to them for years. It depends entirely upon the use of skilful men, with a neglect of balancing their team well, and it was through paying little or no attention to the style of game they must meet in their opponents, they found themselves too light to successfully check the heavy rushing. The weakness of their forward line left too much tackling for the halves, who in turn were so used up by this tackling, that they had no strength to show their skill when the time came.

"Yale was the best generaled team in the field. In meeting Princeton, they played their heavy runners with only an occasional kick when forced, but when they met the heavy charging of Harvard, they stubbornly fought the ground inch by inch, and never used their best runners until they had driven the ball by a kick well down. In this way they had ever a strong fresh man for a dash up the goal, and an almost infallible kicker to send the ball skimming over.

"Never has the game been so eminently satisfactory to players and spectators, but the final touch was wanting until a meeting of the advisory committee. which constitutes a court of appeals, instead of the annual squabble over technical points, the representatives of the teams unanimously withdrew all protests that had been entered, showing most unmistakably that the rivalry of the season had been a most generous one. A few years of contest between such teams and in such a spirit will so thoroughly convince every one of the value of the sport that nothing short of the most abject folly on the part of the younger players who take up the game can prevent its future being the brightest, because the most free from any professional or hippodroming element, of any of our pastimes."