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 CHAPTER III.

GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE PRESENT GAME.

Though sports are transmitted from one generation to another, they usually change their general character, as they do their names, yet seldom lose their most prominent features. When civilization tamed the manners and habits of the Indian, it reflected its modifying influence upon his amusements, and thus was Lacrosse gradually divested of its radical rudeness and brought to a more sober sport—though to call the game in any measure a sober recreation may be bordering on the sarcastic. Only a savage people could, would or should play the old game; only such constitutions, such wind and endurance could stand its violence. The present game, improved and reduced to rule by the whites, employs the greatest combination of physical and mental activity white men can sustain in recreation,