WAR OF FOOTBALL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8116, 10 April 1906, Page 3

WAR OF FOOTBALL.

TOLL GP KILLED AND . INJURED IN AMERICA. Football at best is a rough game, bat as it is played in some American universities it seems to be not so much a game as a battle, in which the aim of the combatants in to maim, if not to kill, eaob other. *A kind of armour is worn to prevent the tearing off of ears and worse injuries; but, notwithstanding this protection, says the British Medioal Journal, the list of serious casualties is appalling. During the last season 27 men were killed in the American football war. A a idea of the ferocity with which the "game" is played may be gained from a paper by Dr?. E. fl. Nioholla and E. B. Smith, who had medioal obarge of the Harvard squad last season. The strength of the squad at the beginning \of the season was 150. * The length of time the men were hors de combat from tho football battlefield during the season amounted in all to 1,057 days while the total duration of disablement from soholastio duties was 175 days. At the 1 end of the season 35 men were still suffering from their injuries, and many more who thought they were recovered were known to be still more or less permanently disabled. "It is diffloult to understand, 1 ' comments the British Medioal Journal," "how a civilised people can continue to tolerate in the nurseries of its statesmen and its leaders in the various fields of human activity an atrooity worthy only of savages."