To take a very close analogy, mark the progress of events in the sister game. The Associationists sanctioned professionalism because they had no alternative. When they took the problem in hand, professionalism was too big a child to be got rid of.

Note now this most significant and instructive fact. Only six-months after the legitimisation of the bastard we see two professional teams left to fight out the final Cup tie. To what does all this tend? Why this: gentlemen who play football once a week as a pastime will find themselves no match for men who give up their whole time and abilities to it. How should they? One by one, as they find themselves outclassed, they will desert the game, and leave the field to professionals.

And what sport, we would ask, has thriven when supported by professionals only? Why, none.

The Rugby Union Committee finding themselves face to face with the hydra, have determined to throttle it before it is big enough to throttle them.

We venture to differ from Mr. Budd, because in cricket, the one sport, so far as we know, in which amateurs and professionals have always joined in common, the conjunction has both kept professionalism pure, and has improved the form of the gentlemen without in the least causing them to 'find themselves outclassed,' and so 'desert the game.' It would be strange, indeed, were gentlemen to desert a game as soon as they met with a reverse from the 'players.' But apart from this we think the Rugby Union authorities are wrong for quite different reasons. Were gentlemen forced by any rule to meet opponents whom they disliked, we could well agree with him; hut no club need ever play with any clubs but those it chooses, nor in the Rugby game, where there is no national cup tie, is there any moral obligation for a club of gentlemen to meet any crack club of 'players' to try conclusions. Surely, on the other hand, if the Yorkshire clubs prefer to play with or against professional teams, they should be left at liberty to do so. Nor will the edicts of the Union prevent professionals from playing Rugby football if once there is a genuine movement in that direction in the country.

The Houses of Lancaster and Tudor in vain tried to suppress football, and the efforts of the Rugby Union will be equally vain to suppress professionalism if it once begins to pay. The effect of such legislation would only be to drive the movement beneath the surface, and we must still confess that we prefer a man who plays for money and says that he does so, to a 'gentleman' who receives liberal sums for 'expenses.' However, at present there are very few who have any opportunity of making money out of Rugby football, and it will doubtless be well for the sport if the case ever remains so. So far we are in sympathy with the Rugby Union; but if ever more money can be made out of the 'gates' of matches than the clubs know what to do with, professionalism either open or secret there will assuredly be. Until that time shall come the Rugby Union regulations against professionalism are bruta fulmina, and will in our opinion remain so.

We turn to another and more interesting question in conclusion: Both games of football, and especially the Rugby game, have been attacked by ignorant and prejudiced critics as being brutal, dangerous, and unhealthy. We hope that the description we have already given of the games will convince even a prejudiced critic of the immense amount of skill and judgment for which a scope is given in either game. A game which is in the highest degree skilful can scarcely consist of nothing but brutality, or deserve to be called brutal. What is true of the game is that it does give a scope to that delight in 'rough and tumble' which in a greater or less degree is part of every young Englishman's nature, and bred in his very bone. There is no gainsaying the fact that, while the typical Englishman is more humane than most foreigners, he does find pleasure more than any foreigner in mere animal roughness. Upon the highest principles, then, rough sports where a harmless vent may be given to animal spirits are good, not bad, for the race.

Football may be rough, may beat times dangerous; so is riding across country, so is boxing, so is wrestling. The very function and final cause of rough sports is to work off the superfluous animal energy for which there is little vent in the piping times of peace. Since football became popular with all classes there have been less wrenching off of knockers and 'boxing of the watch,' and fewer 'free fights' in the streets. Football has its national uses quite apart from the cheap enjoyment it has given to thousands. It may be rough, but it need not be brutal.

Next as to the danger. Doubtless there are accidents, as many in the one game as in the other, and doubtless men have been killed upon the football field. But during a quarter of a century how many thousands of men have played, and how many out of these thousands have lost their lives? Not half a hundred altogether, we should think. Fewer than those who have been drowned on the river, not a tithe of those who have fallen in the hunting field, are the victims of football. If the outcry against football because of its danger could be justified, not a single outdoor sport could survive. If the game be played by any club with unnecessary roughness the governing bodies can and may be relied on to suppress such practices.

Next as to the game being unhealthy. This charge is solely based on the fact that men have died of mischief to the lungs from football-playing upon wintry days. Doubtless a winter sport gives greater chance for such mishaps than a summer pastime; but the mishaps are not due to the game, but to the carelessness that has followed it. A footballer cannot play without getting warm, and if he change his clothes before the warmth has gone he has nothing to fear. Upon such principles walking along a road in the rain would be found more dangerous than playing football upon a rainy day.

But now let us turn to the other side. For every one who may have been harmed by football, a thousand have benefited by it. Health, endurance, courage, judgment, and above all a sense of fair play, are gained upon the football field. A footbailer must learn, and docs learn, to play fairly in the thick and heat of a struggle. Such qualities are those which make a nation brave and great. The game is manly and fit for Englishmen; 'it puts a courage into their hearts to meet an enemy in the face.'