No one, except a close observer, can believe the earnestness and enthusiasm imparted into the game by the formation of young clubs, but there is one danger which should be avoided. There is such a thing as overdoing; and, depend upon it, if this is continued, the game will suffer. To those who love and appreciate everything in season, the advice I am about to impart will be doubly significant. Football is a winter game, and while it may be all right to practice in spring and autumn, the line is bound to be drawn somewhere, and why attempt to force it down the throats of cricketers, athletes, yachtsmen, and even lawn-tennis players, in the heart of summer? It must not be forgotten that some of our best and most influential football clubs have also cricket clubs and kindred summer recreations attached, and, in the interests of football, these should be encouraged; and to this end I am confident my remarks will be treated with some respect. I am also sure that no one who has taken a deep interest in the game from its comparative infancy, but can look back with extreme pleasure on its development, and even go the length of registering a vow that he will do his utmost to make and uphold it as an honest and manly game, despite isolated assumptions by a few traducers who question such earnestness, and I will endeavour to point them out, and draw comparisons. "What came ye out to see?" might often be asked by an uninterested spectator who had ventured forth to look at some of the matches. A crowd of young men pursuing a round object, called a ball, with great earnestness of purpose. To the young cad, who can think of nothing but the colour of his latest pair of kid gloves, or the check of his newest acquisition in the shape of fashionable trousers, all out-door amusement is considered an interminable bore, the game of Football has, of course, no charm. There is too much hard work for him, and the training required to put one in condition, fraught with all that is called self-denial, he could never endure. The musty old duffer, too, looks upon the game in the light of a deadly sin, which can never be associated in his mind with anything short of idiocy and the most virulent fanaticism. To some of his young men he remarks--"And you call that a grand game, running about a field trying to put a ball near a pair of upright posts, and knocking the first lad down who attempts to retard your progress! Do you call that manly, eh? Would anyone but a pure lunatic run the chance of getting his shins cut, or collar-bone dislocated, indulging in such work, and donning coloured stockings and fantastic shirt the while to make the matter all the more absurd!" He seems to forget that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and the real meaning of a dull boy and a dull man is irregularity and vexation in the counting-house and office. There are amusements and amusements, and recreations and recreations, but I know of none adapted for the winter months which can