THE DANGERS OF FOOTBALL.

Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 87, 14 April 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE DANGERS OF FOOTBALL.

Having regard to innumerable accidents chronicled in the football field, a good .many porßotiH who are not, as a rule, very careful of their bones and skin, have asked whether it will not be necessary sooner or later to roviso the rules of that exceedingly popular game, with the view of lessening its d anger. For obvious reasons football , under the strictest rules, must be a rough game, and we certainly have no desire to see ty put down, as several coroners' juries have suggested ; but we do desire to see those who are guilty of needless violonco dealt severely with by their respective clubs. Football is essentially a poor man's game. It needH no expensive outfit, and, so far as small local clubs are concerned, it does not call for very serious travelling expenses. Clubs are now ao numerous that a weekly matoh can be brought off within a vory small radius from the head quarters of any. It is because the bulk of footballers aro comparatively speaking, poor men that they should be as exempt as possible from injury. If the man who can afford to tako a hunting box and hunt four 01 five days a week gets laid up for -a fortnight, there is no very serious result to anybody, but to a youth learning a trado, to the olork whose handwriting is his living, or to the traveller whose calling needs activity, and the ability to move easily about, permanent injury to a limb may mean ruin and a month in bed, tho loss of salary for a corresponding period. These are no unimportant matters, and though we would not wish the working man, whether he work with his head or his hands, to degenerate into a milksop, we should certainly like to see him indulging in a game whioh is not needlessly hazardous. It may bo objected that in proportion to the number of footballers the tale of acoidenta is small, but we dot think bo. Those who interest themselves in the ohronicles of the game know that injuries more or loss severe are very common — far more so, it appears to us, than in any other pastime; and only a small proportion of cases tind their way into the papers. — lllußtrated Sporting and Dramatic Nows.