AMERICAN FOOTBALL.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2929, 1 August 1911, Page 7

AMERICAN FOOTBALL.

The players are heroes to a man. "I hear," said a Harvard undergraduate to me as we walked back to his rooms after tfie match, "that one of olr Freshmen had his neck broken this afternoon in the game against Yale Freshmen." ''Dear, dear !" I replied. "I'm awfully sorry to hear that !" '"Yes," my friend continued, "so was I. If it's correct, we shall have to postpone the Harvard-Yale match next Saturday." One of this boy's most intimate friends lal two teeth knocked out during the course of the game I witnessed, and at least ten men retired before the end of the match. "What a fuss about a couple of broken toes !" said a woman next to me as onj poor fellow hobbled past. I took a good look at her. She was young and not ill-favoured. You would never have supposed her capable of such ferocity. It was the excitement of thj game, of course, bringing the primitive barbarism to the surface ; but, after making allowance for this extraordinary passion, I wss astonished.

The American game, as you know, .is divided into four parts. At the i conclusion of each part a nian dashes on to the ground with water in a huge bottle and more water in a bucket. The players drink out of the bottle and wash their hands in the bucket. In the meantime, the band plays patriotic tunes and the cheerin? section cheers like mad. Really, it is all very wonderful—very wonderful and interesting indeed.

| At last the game is over. In England, when the game is over, we melt

silently away. Not so in America. There is a great deal more to come. Everybody rushes on to the ground, and there takes place a sort of procession of glory, headed by the band. Thousands of caps are thrown over the cross-bar, the members of the victorious team are escorted in triumph and with full musical honours to the pavilion, and thence to their own rooms.—"Sketch."