to each other. Lately it has been improved, and our success, consequently, nearer consummation.
Aside from the art of play, there is a combination of mental and physical qualities required, for which no length of leg can compensate. When Lacrosse was “in its leading-strings,” it was considered the height of good fielding to rush frantically over the field, upset and be upset, and come out cut and bruised. If a man had shoulders like an Atlas, and the force of a battering-ram, he was the pet of his “ Twelve,” and the terror of his adversaries. The practical use of the crosse was by no means to be sneered at; indeed, in respect to the quick use of the stick, it was superior, in the home department, to the same art of today. The fielding, however, was very rough. To be spotted with mud from head to toe, was equal to a ribbon of the legion of honor, and a tough match was considered a cheap and capital way of draining mud puddles. There is more brain in the fielding and general play of to-day.
It is an Indian instinct, and should be a pale-face principle in Lacrosse, that the ball should be followed on or off the crosse, by the link of men in succession, as they happen to be near it, and with discretion as
