That our American game is past hoping for on the score of playability is by no means certain. As the historical critics of literature are fond of saying, a period of rapid development is always marked by flagrant excesses, and the development of modern American football has been of astonishing rapidity. Quite often the game of one season has been radically different from the games of all preceding seasons. This cannot continue always, for the number of possible variations is obviously limited, and when the limit is reached American Rugby will be, like English Rugby, the same old game year in and year out. Everybody, from the youngest prep. to the oldest grad., will know it and love it. The two vital points in which our game differs from the English--"possession of the ball" and "interference"--are both the occasion of vigorous handling of one's opponents. When an American player is tackled, he seldom dares to pass the ball for fear of losing possession of it, so that our rule is to tackle low and hard, in order to stop the ball sharply, and if possible to jar it out of the runner's grasp. In England, it is still fair play to grab a man by the ankle. This is partly because of the softness of the moist thick English turf; but more largely because, as passing is the rule, the tackler in nine cases out of ten aims at the ball. The result is that a man is seldom slammed to the earth as he would be in our game. It is this fact that enables the English player to go bare-kneed. The danger from interference in the American game is also considerable. When a man is blocked off, he is liable to be thrown violently upon the far from tender bosom of our November mother-earth. Any one familiar with the practice of an American eleven will remember the constant cry of the coaches: "Knock your man on the ground! Put him out of the play!" It has been truly enough said that the American game has exaggerated the most dangerous features of the two English games--the tackling of English Rugby and the "charging" or body-checking of the Association game.