Page:Lacrosse- The National Game of Canada (New Edition).djvu/21

 4 writer holding the identity of origin of the Indian and Irish races with the Phœnicians, and ingeniously attempting to show sufficient resemblance between Lacrosse and Coman to make a plausible argument for his theory. The former part of the proposition involves scientific questions hardly within my province to discuss, but it seems rather far-fetched. If this ethnological view be correct, it would scarcely seem possible that the game of Lacrosse should now be almost the only prominent remnant of the Phœnician origin of the Indian race. Were I inclined like the Irishman who traced his genealogy into the Ark, and the locality of Paradise to his potato patch, which he was irreverently offering for sale, I might enter into archaeological researches, and build up theories from hypothesis; but this would only lead astray.

It is quite possible that there should be resemblances between Lacrosse and Coman, as between any game of ball played with a bat. In "Strutt's Sports and Pastimes" may be read some very close coincidences, but nothing to prove their identity. The writer aforesaid hinges his conclusions greatly upon the present resemblance between the sticks used in both