insist on hacking in their communication with Cambridge had been carried by a bare majority of one vote, only to be reversed in a subsequent conference.
The discussion at this same meeting of December 1, 1863, furnishes such strange reading by the light of public opinion at the present time, that it will be of interest to recapitulate some of the arguments that were adduced on the subject of hacking, pro and con The rules which practically caused the disruption between the two sections were as follows:—
"9. A player shall be entitled to run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal if he makes a fair catch, or catches the ball on the first bound; but in the case of a fair catch, if he makes his mark, he shall not then run.
"10. If any player shall run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal, any player on the opposite side shall be at liberty to charge, hold, trip, or hack him, or wrest the ball from him j but no player shall be held and hacked at the same time."
Here was, in fact, the cause of the whole disagreement. The Sheffield club, the earliest organization as far as I can find for the development of football, had just given in its adhesion to the Association, at the same time, in offering its opinion on the new code, expressing its disapproval of the rules just given, especially of the second, which it declared to be more suggestive of wrestling. The actual opposition, though, was led by Mr. J. F. Alcock, captain of the Forest Football Club, which was formed in 1859, and was practically the first football combination in London on anything like a proper basis. Mr. E. C. Morley, of the Barnes club, the Hon. Secretary of the Association, however, opened the attack with the objection, that though he was of opinion that hacking was more dreadful. in name and on paper than in reality, if it were introduced no one who had arrived at
