ATHENÆUM NEWSPAPER FILES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5685, 19 June 1879, Page 3

ATHENÆUM NEWSPAPER FILES.

TO THE EDITOR 01' THE N '.-M ZEALAND TIMES. - Sir, — Who is it that cuts column' of reading matter oat of the papers in the Athenaeum 1 X find that the whole of the following extract relating to a subject of much interest to a large section of the Wellington public has been carefully cut out of the sporting column of the Canterbury Times of the 14th instant. I thinlc it only right that the elided passage should be published, in order that the object (if any) of the thieves may be defeated. From the Canterbury Times, 14th June:—“l see that the Lyttelton Times makes mention of that horrible and demoralising pastime called‘Football as played in Melbourne.’ All true lovers of the old rules, whether Association, Rugby. Union, Rugby (strict), or any of the dribbling games of the public schools should make a stern and uncompromising stand against those most pernicious practices; and, indeed, any true footballer would view them with the same horror that a M.F.H. would a man who had shot a fox. There is no such thing as ‘oaside’ or ‘ off side a man, when running, must bound the ball before him every 10yds., and there are men actually placed in the opponent's goal, and applicably nominated ‘ goal sneaks.’ It is true that to the class of men who rnshed the cricket ground at Sydney there might be a hankering after the free fights that the Lyttelton Times' correspondent slyly alludes to, and, indeed, for a man of high animal spirits I should say that he would have to do something of the kind to derive the excitement that he failed to get in the so-called game of football; Long may it be before we give up the old game in Canterbury, and if the other provinces like to follow the lead of Melbourne instead of sticking to the rules generally played in England let us still hold by the old game, and uphold that truly English spirit which a correspondent, writing to me from Dunedin, remarks exists so universally throughout our province.” I may state that the paragraph in the Lyttelton Times alluded to above is also out'out of the copy of that paper in the Atbemeum.— I am, &c., , > ... . Censor.