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RUGBY UNION FOOTBALL.

the income has increased to nearly £1200, and the expenditure to upwards of £500.

Three of the original clubs hailed from Scotland, viz. West of Scotland, Edinburgh University, and Glasgow Academicals; the rest all came from round London, and a third of them, whose names we give honoris causâ, are still on the list, viz. Marlborough Nomads, Richmond, Blackheath, Guy's, Clapham Rovers, Epsom, Wellington and St. Paul's Schools, Queen's (then called Queen's House), Wasps, and Civil Service.

In the following season the Harlequins, Oxford, Eaton Rovers, and Dulwich were admitted from the South, and Wigan, Liverpool, and Manchester, from Lancashire. Trinity College, Dublin, was the first Irish club to join the Union, and Hull was the only representative of Yorkshire until Bradford joined in 1874; whereas at the present day Yorkshire and Lancashire can count their members by scores, and even the colonies can muster double figures.

In the early days of the Union the entrance fee and subscription were fixed at five shillings each, in 1874 they were raised to a guinea each, and the Union could now in any single season largely increase the number of its members by reverting to the original figures, if for any reason it should think it wise to do so.

When to these facts it is added that in 1873, 1875, and 1880, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, respectively, started separate Unions of their own, which are all in a flourishing condition, we have said enough to afford conclusive evidence of the general popularity of the Union code throughout the United Kingdom. But perhaps the growth of the game can be still more clearly illustrated by tracing the history of the Rugby Union Committee—the body to which has been entrusted from the first the management and