Still the city youths were not always indulging in demonstrations about this time, and a number of games of football were played about the metropolis after the Restoration. In 1665 Pepys records in his diary that on January the 2nd, the streets were full of footballs, it being a great frost. Probably the footballers of that time did not play football for choice when the ground was frozen; but a long frost meant a long holiday and cessation from business in those good old times, and the ’prentices therefore got an opportunity of playing the game which they would not have had in open weather. We hear too of a match played in 1681 between the servants of King Charles II. and those of the Duke of Albemarle, which the king witnessed himself and was much delighted at. A few years later, there was enough football in London to attract the notice of a French visitor, M. Misson, who published his views of England at the end of the 17th century in a book brought out at Paris in the year 1698, and entitled “Mémoires et Observations Faites par un Voyageur.” We need hardly wonder that the Frenchman in his description of the game should be unable to appreciate its exact significance. Simple as the game undoubtedly was in these days, there was probably a little more “science” in it than the visitor to our shores could comprehend. These are his words: “En hiver le Football est un exercice utile et charmant. C’est un balon de cuir, gros comme la tête et rempli de vent: cela se balotte avec le pied dans les rues par celui qui le peut attraper: il n’y a point d’autre science.” From this very short allusion in a long work some very interesting pieces of information are to be derived. First, it appears that at this time the football had definitely assumed somewhat of its present shape: it was a leather ball, full of wind, as large as a man’s head. Next we find that football was definitely regarded by a foreigner as a regular winter sport in England, and that it was still played as an ordinary matter of course in the streets or public places. A third inference may possibly be drawn from the passage. M. Misson speaks of no running or collaring, but merely of kicking with the feet. Here at last might the dribbler think that we find a definite allusion to the original dribbling or Association game. After consideration, however, we think that a different explanation of the passage is probably to be given. From the description we have quoted, it seems probable that the writer had not seen a genuine football match, but merely boys or men kicking a football about the streets for amusement,--in modern phraseology “having a punt-about.” Whichever interpretation of the passage, however, be taken, it seems not improbable that it was from the custom of punting a ball about in a confined space for the sake of obtaining warmth and exercise upon a cold day, without any running with the ball or rough horseplay, that the proficiency in dribbling and kicking was