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football should lead the attention of the youth too far away from archery that King Edward II. seized occasion to issue a proclamation against its further playing in the city of London when the merchant guilds applied for its suppression as a nuisance. The proclamation in the King's name was issued in 1314, an extract from the document saying:

"Forasmuch as there is great noise in the city, caused by hustling over large balls from which many evils might arise which God forbid, we command and forbid on behalf of the King such game to be used in the city in the future." It is evident that although the demand of the London merchants for forbidding the game in the narrow city streets may have been successful, the game continued among the yeomanry, and King Henry VI. attacked it upon the grounds considered most important by the authorities. In 1457 he issued a decree that "football and golfe be utterly cryed down and not to be used." At the same time he ordered that military reviews should be held, with displays of and practice with weapons.

Henry VII. renewed the prohibition in 1491, his quaint language running thus: "In no place of this realme ther be used futeball, gelfe or other sik unprofitable sportes." But royal deBut royal decree could not suppress the game, and if put aside for a while, it was only to come forward again with new popularity.

In the time of Queen Elizabeth football was in high favor. It was played in the city streets, on the commons, and in country lanes. There was not much rule or order to the game, the object being merely to put the ball into the enemy's goal, by fair means or by foul. The goals might be a mile apart, with ditches and hedges and highroads between. The players struggled in earnest, and broken bones were no rarity in the rush that followed.

it as it was punted down the streets, over housetops, and across commons. The merchants barred shop windows and doors as the merry crowds surged through the streets, for scant heed was given to any obstacle that stood in the way of the pursuit of the ball. Sometimes two or more crowds, in chase of the flying pigskin, fell foul of one another's course, and then there was a to-do, and the strongest held the right of way, perhaps carrying off both balls, and causing the other crowd to join in their pursuit.

In 1508 the game was popular enough. to be mentioned in the literature of the day, and Barclay

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wrote:

The sturdie plowman,

Justie, strong, and bold,

Overcometh the winter

with driving the footeball,

Forgetting labur and many a grievous fall.

There is no question that there was

This was probably the roughest and most brutal period in football's history. The ac- opposition to the counts of the times speak frequently of accidents, and too often there were fatal incidents in the playing of the game.

Shrove Tuesday was football day in those times, and then the whole populace went football mad. Every one turned out to kick the ball. There was one grand scramble to reach

game on account of its roughness. The powdered,ruffled,satined gallants of the day declared it a rude pastime unfit for polite society.

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In 1583, Stubbes, in his celebrated work on "Abuses in the Realme of England," said: "For as concerning football playing, I protest unto you that it may rather be called a friendly kinde of fyghte than a play or recreation, a bloody and murthering practice than a felowly sporte or pastime. For doth not everyone lye in waight for his adversary, seeking seeking to overthrow him and pick him on his nose, though it be on hard stones, on ditch or dale, on valley or hill, or whatever place soever it be, he careth not SO he have him downe; and he that can serve the most of this fashion he is counted the only felow, and who but he?"

The popularity of football extended into Scotland, where it rivaled golf, and it spread rapidly over the kingdom. Once a year at Scone a great game was played between the married men and the bachelors of the community. It was the object of the married men to "hang" the ball, or place it three times in a pit, and of the bachelors to drown" it, or dip it three times in the river. The ball was not kicked, but seized and carried. A tavern ditty of the period describes the game as follows:

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At Scales great Tom Barwise got the ba' in his hand, And t' wives aw ran out and shouted and banned,

Tom Cowan then pulched and flang him 'mong t' whins, And he bleddered "Od-white-te, tou's broken my shins!"

With the year 1800 the game began to be

adopted by English schools and universities as the leading sport. In 1863, an association was formed and it was made a scientific sport. At this time the game was played differently by different universities. Rugby permitted carrying the ball, holding runners, charging and tackling, while Harrow and Winchester only allowed kicking. In 1871 the Rugby Union was formed, and rules laid down. Prior to 1875 American universities had paid little attention to football. It was Harvard that brought the game to the United States, and, in order to have a foeman worthy of its steel, taught it to Yale. "Old Eli" took gracefully the drubbing that was involved in learning the first lesson, which was learned so well that for many years thereafter Harvard had no more victories.

The Rugby game has been developed in America mainly along the lines of interference and tackling. The Yankees were quick to perceive advantages which could be gained in this direction and put them into play. In 1886 Princeton introduced the "wedge," using it against Harvard, who in turn took it up against Yale next year. Then Harvard went one better and brought out the "flying wedge," which, with the "V," the "push," and the "plow," are permanent features of football work.

In the perfection of football-playing into a scientific sport from the old rough-and-tumble games of the past, an involved system of signals has come into use. The signals are made by calling out numbers.

There seems to be no les-
sening of interest in the
sport. There may
be as

many as twenty thousand
spectators, and
the great
game of football, which be-
gan with the Greeks, was car-
ried on by the Romans, de-
veloped by the British, and
perfected by the Americans,
seems to be indeed the king
of autumn sports.

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J.CF.

THE STORY OF BARNABY LEE.

BY JOHN BENNETT.
(Author of "Master Skylark.")

[This story was begun in the November number of 1900.]

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE BELEAGUERED CITY.

MEANWHILE the vessels of the British fleet had anchored below the Narrows, cutting off all communication between the North River and the sea. The squadron consisted of four ships, carrying ninety-four guns among them, and three companies of the king's regulars, perhaps four hundred and fifty men, to which were now added militia from New Haven and Long Island who had joined the attacking squadron at Nyack. The English colonial governors from Virginia to Maine had been summoned to furnish both vessels and men to assist in reducing New Netherland; but, as yet, one vessel only had come, that one from Maryland, a privateer manned by a cutthroat-visaged crew, and aught but respectable. Reinforcements, both horse and foot, were flocking in by land from the northern colonies, eager to storm Fort Amsterdam and to give the town over to pillage, New Amsterdam being the richest port upon the Atlantic coast.

There was lying in the harbor a little trading-vessel, which carried a battery of ten small ship's guns, and a crew of no more than fifteen men. Her skipper, Derrick Jacobsen De Vries, brother to a brave Dutch admiral renowned for his gallantry, petitioned the burgomeisters that they let him go out to fight the Englishmen. "Their whole fleet?" they cried.

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'Then I must fire mine thrice as fast as the admiral fires his. That is not much of a job," said De Vries. "The English are very slow. And we need reckon only eighteen guns, for half of them will be pointed to the opposite side, and we shall not be there. If I remain in your harbor I shall be taken, at any rate. I would rather go up in the air, mynheeren, than stay here to be caught like a cow in the mud. If I could send the admiral to supper with Jan Codfish I should die with more glory than ever was won peddling skins and cheeses."

But they would not let the brave fellow go. Instead, they began to lose courage as they counted over the desperate odds against the city, and began to ponder in their hearts what terms they might get from the English.

Now when Colonel Richard Nicolls first demanded the surrender of the city, he accompanied the summons with an alluring proclamation designed to influence toward surrender all who were predisposed to peace or at all inclined to preserve themselves at the expense of a colony, and in this proclamation guaranteed to the inhabitants safe possession of their property, their lives and livelihoods, on condition that they submit to English rule and take the king's oath of allegiance.

John Winthrop of Connecticut, who was with the British fleet, wrote also to Stuyvesant and to the Burgomeisters' Council, at Colonel Nicolls's suggestion, strongly recommending a surrender, indeed, advising it. But Stuyvesant was determined to stand for honor and duty's "I have not much choice; I can only meet sake, in spite of the desperate state of affairs, them as they come," he replied.

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and fearing that these easy terms, and the very prospect of safety, would undermine what courage still existed in the town, and dissuade the timorous burghers from their showing of de. fense, sent neither the proclamation nor letter to the Council, and when they demanded the English terms, refused to make them known. Then the burgomeisters in council demanded

the conditions offered them by the enemy in case of capitulation. "We have a right to know what terms are offered us in surrender," they said. “It is our lives and properties which will be lost in case of assault, and ye have no right to withhold the terms that are offered to our city."

"'T is shame," he said, "that ye wish to see terms dishonorably offered."

"We are here for our lives, not our honors," replied the burgomeisters. "We would willingly risk our lives, your Excellency, if there were the slightest hope of success; but desperately to rush a handful of half-armed citizens and untrained serving-men upon the pikes of three brigades would be the sheerest madness." "Will ye fight only because ye must, and not because your cause is just?" he cried.

"Verily," they said; "we came here to settle and to build, to trade, to profit, and to thrive, not to fight the English."

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a coaster named the " Princess as she attempted to pass to the Navesinks with cattle from Long Island. They fell upon her sud. denly as she lay at the landing-place, and very quickly took her, with all the cattle in her and those which she had landed. They also captured the cattle remaining on Long Island, with half the serving-men and herders, the other half saving themselves by flight, the English in pursuit. And these were Van Sweringen's cattle, which he had purchased at the Brooklyn fair for the colony at New Amstel, and they were bought with his brother's money. That same day, also, the English overhauled a flyboat from New Amstel, bringing powder to the city, and fired a round shot through her mast, whereat the Dutch crew ran her ashore and fled into the woods, closely pursued by the English with hangers, dirks, and pistols. The Dutch made good their escape in the forest, and came to New Amsterdam with the news; but the English took the flyboat and the powder.

Then fear began to spread throughout the town, and the powerful and the wealthy began to pack up their goods and to send them out to

Then he struck one man across the mouth, Haarlem, and it was covertly reported that who insisted upon submission.

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Cowards, cowards!" he cried, and the froth from his mouth ran down upon his coat. He was terribly enraged. Poltroons!" he cried, would ye sell your souls for a pack of beaverskins?"

But he could not, by the bitter means of wrath, reanimate their souls, and though, perhaps, he shamed them, he could not make them brave.

Juffvrouw Van Ruyter, the Secretary's wife, had escaped from the city in the night, with Nicolas Meyer's wife, and had fled to the house of a cousin, in the village of Overen, for safety. When this report came to the little burghers, they began to say, “Ah, yes; and this being so, what of us? The rich and the great can look out for themselves, but what 's to become of us?" And Jan De Moellin put off in his boat to escape to his brother's house on Long Island. At noon he came back with a broken head and one side of his boat staved in. The English had met him at the shore, laid hold upon all of his household goods, crushed his boat, and beaten him. The whole Long Island shore was guarded by English regulars.

They redemanded the English terms and Governor Winthrop's letter, with continued importunities in spite of his constant refusal; and when their importunate anger rose in opposition to him, in a sudden fit of anger and bitter exasperation, Stuyvesant tore Governor Winthrop's letter into shreds. Against this act and its consequences the burgomeisters pro- At this there was roaring in the streets, and tested, washed their hands of responsibility, presently wilder dismay; for many, beginning and departed in high dudgeon. And thus was eagerly to seek for opportunities to escape, the town divided within its government at the venturing forth from the city in opposite direcvery time when it most needed inseparable tions, returned even more quickly than they union. went forth, and in dreadful agitation, for they That day the ships of the English fleet took found that the English had established a guard

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