I have examined the apparatus for the play you have so kindly sent over,--the great leathern bag of wind which is kicked, "_les_ Goalpoles", and the regulations for the playing of the game, and have seen your fifteen professional County "kicksmen" engage,--I shudder as I recall the terrible sight,--in a contest, horrible, murderous, and demoniacal, with an equal number of my unhappy compatriots, alas! in their enthusiasm and _élan_, ignorant of the deadly struggle that awaited them in the game in which they were about innocently to join. To witness the savage rush of your professional kicksmen was terrifying, and when, in displaying "_le scrimmage_", they scattered, with the kicks of their legs, my fainting compatriots, who fell lamed and wounded in all directions, I said to myself, this "Foote-Balle" is not a pastime, it is an encounter of wild beasts, "_un vrai carnage_," fit to be played, not by civilised sporting gentlemen, but by cannibals. But let me explain that it is not the kick to which I object, for is not _le coup de pied_ the national defence of France? Indeed, in your own fist contest in "Le Boxe-Match," is not to deliver a kick in the jaw of your antagonist considered a meritorious _coup_, showing great skill in the boxeman? And do not our own _garçons de collège_ kick a _confrère_ when he is "down," and point to the circumstance with a legitimate pride and satisfaction? No, it is not _le coup de pied_ which makes horrible "Le Foote-Balle," but the conspiracy organised of the kicksmen--_Les Demidos_ (the 'alf-backs), _Les En Avants_ (the Forwards), and the "Goal-keepers"--all to kick the leathern bag of wind at once, and so produce a murderous _mêlée_ in which arms, legs, ribs, thighs, necks, and spines are all broken together, and may be heard simultaneously cracking by any of the terror-struck but helpless spectators who are watching the ghastly contest. Viewing the game under this aspect, you will not be surprised to hear that my Committee have, as they did in dealing with "Le Cricquette," revised the rules and regulations for the playing of your "Foote-Balle," so as to suit it to the tastes and requirements of the rising generation of our Modern France. I cannot at present furnish you with full details of the suggested modifications, but I may inform you that it has been unanimously decided that the "Balle," which is to be of "some light, airy, floating material, and three times its present size," is not to be touched by the foot at all, but struck lightly by the palm of the hand, and thus wafted harmlessly, with a smart smack, over the heads of the combatants.