FATAL FOOTBALL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9707, 1 February 1910, Page 7

FATAL FOOTBALL.

As usual, as at the end of every season of American collegiate football, there is a vigorous'newspaper demand that the 'game shall either be abolished altogether or that its brutal characteristics be eliminated. A table prepared by the "Chicago Tribune" shows that during the latest season there were 30 deaths, 69 serious injuries, and several hundreds of minor casualites. There were twelve cases of broken collarbones, eight broken noses, twelve broken legs, nineteen broken ribs, nine broken arms, nineteen broken ankles, thirteen broken shoulders, eight broken wriats, eight broken fingers, six broken hands, and three broken jaws. According to Mr P. W. Moore, a Harvard graduate who has Jong been connected with the management of Harvard teams, players are now coached always to "strike an opponent in the face or head with the open hand" when defending the ball "This blow landed on the jaw is fully as effective,so far as its jarring effect on ttie brain is concerned, as a blow with the closed fist would be." In last season" Harvard-Yaie game a straight-arm punch in the face (although absolutely barred in professional prize-fighting) was used as part of an effective tackle, and was perfectly legitimate under the present rules. One newspaper which is contending strongly for the mending or ending ot football as at present played, points out that the game is much more dangerous to life and limb than actual warfare, this conclusion being based upon the American loss of six wounded and none killed in the battle of Manila Bay, when Dewey's fleet was under fire for seven hours, and the loss of one American Killed and, about a dozen wounded in the Santiago engagement. Football of the American kind has been banished from the activities of Columbia University since 1905, and the testimony of a close observer of the effects is dis tinctly flattering to the altered condition of affairs. Institution of the reform was hotly contested at every step by highly-paid managers of teams, coaches, and manufacturers of football supplies, but their efforts, happily, were in vain. Columbia professors state that the students now settle down to work as they have never done before in the autumn weeks, which previously were dominated by football. The change has been beneficial in another important direction, inasmuch as it permits the regular and rational participation in outdoor sports by hundreds . of students who formerly found contentment in the spectacle of twentytwo collegiate gladiators mauling and maiming each other. Football was never intended to take the place of drawing room exercises, but as interpreted in America it has degenerated into a contest of brute strength sufficient smattering of scientific knowledge to ensure the disabling of the largest number of op ponents in the shortest space of time. It is no wonder that United States public opinion Is demanding that the game be transformed without further delay, so as to make it "a sport of gentlemen; not a battle of toughs."