Against the professional player I say nothing；he is a public entertainer, like any other, and by his skill in his particular sport he at least fulfills the first social duty of man—that of supporting himself and his family by his own legitimate exertions. But what is to be said of the crack amateur?To me he seems one of the most contemptible of mankind.He earns no money, but devotes himself, for the mere selfish pleasure of the thing, to some game, which he plays day in day out；he breaks down the salutary distinction between the amateur and the professional；eventually his skill deserts him, and he leaves behind him nothing that is of service to his fellow men—not a brick laid, not an acre ploughed, not a line written, not even a family supported and educated by his labor.