BILLIARDS.* THE new " Badminton" volume maintains the high standard
of excellence which the public has learned to demand from contributors to the famous Library. The general design of the series was laid down by the Duke of Beaufort in the original preface. His object was to provide an encyclopaedia of sports written by experts for would-be amateurs "who have no friend to help or coach them." As the undertaking proceeded it became clear that the manuals were intended to be works of art in themselves ; and some of the volumes may be accepted as models of printing and ornament, though the editor only aimed at being useful "to this and future genera- tions." The present volume has been prepared by Major W. Broadfoot, R.E., well known as a high-class player and as one of the leading authorities on the principles and regulation of the English game. He has associated himself with several other experts, whose skill and practical help are duly acknow- ledged, especial thanks being offered to Mr. R. H. R. Rimington-Wilson, whose aid, we are told, it is impossible to over-estimate. The modern history of English billiards, "the winning-and-losing carambole game" from which the French and American players have so widely diverged, has been written by Mr. Sydenham Dixon. Mr. Archibald Boyd
• Billiards. By Major W. Broadfoot, B.E., and other Writers. "The Bad. minton Library." London : Longmans, Green, and Co.
has undertaken the wide subject of materials and implements, or the armature of the game, as it might be called ; and we are taught how to build the room and to erect the table. The slate may come from the Penrbyn or Aberdovey quarries, and the "firm and leathery cloth " from Stroud. The balls should be of the African ivory, but the player in times of depres- sion may be driven to some ponderous and greasy substitute. We are told that a Swedish inventor has introduced balls made of hollow cast-steel ; but it is not yet known how they will behave as regards elasticity and rotation. The shaft of the billiard-cue is made of English ash, the " humours " of the wood being corrected when it comes to building up the " butt ; " it is said that almost every shaft has a soft spot, and that in such a case the wood will always cast back " towards the centre of the tree from which it was cut." The modern cue represents the obsolete mace, which was itself evolved from the crooked billet, which reposed on the player's shoulder while he shoved the ball and balanced himself with one finger on the side-rail. The leather " tips " are still imported from abroad. We may remember how the French- man Mingaud utilised his imprisonment by inventing the tip, or procede, and how he got leave to remain in gaol till he had enough practice on the Governor's billard. His invention made our modern game possible. The leather point required the use of chalk, and it was certain that screw-backs and side- strokes would be discovered not long afterwards. We should suppose that the celebrated marker at Bath had but a short run for his sale of half-crown " screwing-chalk." There is an amusing scene in the best French treatise on the game, where Mingaud astonishes the good people of Tarascon. The ball runs back as if by magic, and makes the most inconceivable " cannons " to a chorus of " V !" and "Pecere !" and the rest of the little language of Tartarin.
A scientific essay on making long breaks is accompanied by a memorandum on every-day billiards ; and the depressed amateur will doubtless be cheered in reading Mr. Boyd's simple hints to the moderate player, who hardly knows the faults that spoil his game. Mr. Rimington-Wilson follows with some brilliant notes on the "top-of-the-table game," so called in contradistinction to the old-fashioned all-round system or "out-in-the-country play." In the new system the three balls are kept together near the "top-rail," as the Americans say ; the idea is to attain and regain the position mere, from which the player makes an alternation of winning hazards and cannons, " varied by nurseries and incidental play." In a "nursery of cannons," we are told, the balls are kept travelling on by a succession of little pushes. " The series was invented in America under the name of Rail-play, and brought to France by Vignaux, where, though quite modern, it is already barred in match-games." Major Broadfoot shows that its success in England is mainly due to our allowing the push-stroke, which is not permitted in France, and will probably be forbidden in this country. The leading pro- fessionals have used this " nursery-play " in order to delight the public with long scores, the celebrated "spot-stroke" having fallen out of favour in consequence of its intolerable monotony. There are many objections to the "nursery system," partly because it is open to suspicions of sleight-of- hand and trickery. So, at least, it would appear from Mr. Sydenham Dixon's entertaining historical essay, in which he predicts that " the table of the near future " will be altered in several respects. The game of billiards, he tells us, is just now in a curious state ; it is popular in clubs and country houses, while the general public gives it but a fitful support. " There is no doubt that exhibition matches have been terribly overdone during the last few seasons, and some genuine battles are sadly needed to revive the fading interest in the doings of professional players. It may, I think, be taken for granted that the push-stroke, which has been abused to such an extent that a big cannon-break is only put together by a succession of glaring fouls, is doomed." If the pockets are made smaller and the position of the red ball altered, there will in his opinion be no occasion to bar any fair stroke, since gigantic breaks like those of the past will be a matter of "sheer im- possibility." Yet it must be confessed that the sporting class will hardly find gate-money if there is no chance of a "record performance," so that it is difficult to see how the public interest in exhibition billiards is to be maintained.
The new proposals will carry back the reader's remembrance to the times when Kentfield was champion. He may be con- sidered as the inventor of the modern game. When he began his career the implements were of the rudest kind; the beds were of wood, the cushions of list and cotton, and the cloth of a rough green-baize. When he set up the Brighton Sub- scription Rooms an ordinary table was of much the same con- struction as is used at the present day. Kentfield was skilful at the " spot-stroke," but he foresaw that it might spoil the game; and he accordingly made the alterations of con- struction which were afterwards adopted by the elder Roberts, his successor in the championship. The younger Roberts is said to have predicted the same danger, and to have warned his fellow-professionals that the long spot-breaks would " kill the popularity" of the game and destroy its "artistic position."
We should have been pleased if the work had contained a little more about the ancient history of billiards. The evolu- tion of popular games is always an obscure subject. They can be traced in broad outlines to originals of a respectable antiquity; but it is found that the special features with which the living generation is most concerned have grown up any- how, to meet the demand for novelty, the laws of fashion, or the interests of the toy-making trade ; and very few writers have thought it worth while to record their erratic develop- ments. The case of billiards is no exception to the rule. The old dictionaries give us extremely vague descriptions. Take, for example, The New World of Words, by Edward Phillips, first issued in 1658. He says that the game was played on " a long-square table," covered with green cloth, and that the player's business was "with a stick made on purpose to strike a little ivory ball into the holes at the sides and corners." The wood-cuts in the Compleat Gamester of 1674 and the School of Recreation, published about ten years afterwards, show the players using crooked maces leaning on the neck or shoulder. One has a wooden arch to defend, and the other an obelisk; and we must suppose that these had been added either in lieu of a third ball, or as extra " hazards " to save the pastime from monotony. The Compleat Gamester, according to Strntt, contained instructions for all kinds of amusements,—" first of billiards, of trucks (not much unlike the former), of bowling, and the game of chess ; " then follow the card-games, " picket, English ruff and honours, whist and French ruff," and the rest, backgammon, hazard, &c., the mystery of riding the great horse, of racing and archery and cock-fighting. Going back to an earlier generation, we find that the game was barely mentioned by Shakespeare and in the Passionate Madman by Beaumont and Fletcher. From Burton's notice of it in The Anatomy of Melancholy we may conclude that the game had been " promoted from the lawn or courtyard" as early as the reign of James I. His list of recreations for winter includes chess and Yule-games, cards and dice, shovelboard and shuttlecock, " small trunks " and billiards. One mast suppose that the last-mentioned pastime was not known in England under Henry VIII., since it does not appear in the catalogue of unlawful games, which were forbidden to the meaner sort of men, except at Christmas or under their master's license. The Colloquies of Erasmus contain an account of the game of striking a ball through a ring that turned on a pivot. This may have been the way in which the primitive form of billiards was introduced from the Continent ; and, if this be so, the game may have been played indifferently either on the floor or with a more civilised apparatus. We think that the best source of information on such matters is the book on gymnastics by Girolamo Mercuriale, first printed at Venice in 1569. Here we find, a spirited description of the game of pall-mall, or Pilw-inalleus, then recently introduced at Naples, and received with enthusiasm throughout Europe; and to this there was a somewhat feeble rival in a game which resembled lawn-billiards. It was played with a ring fixed into the ground and wooden balls, the players either using their hands or the eubus ligneus, which was probably some kind of crooked mace. M. Desnar has traced the literary history of the French game in the introduction to Professor Vignaux's practical treatise. We read again of the Grand- Treasurer Chamillart, distinguished for his billiards and his well-bound books : " IL filt un heros an billard, un zero dans le ministere." In the year 1610 was established the Corporation of Billardiers-Paulmiers, under which a few courtiers obtained control over all billiard-play open to the public, whether carried on in rooms or on the Boulevards. An old chronicler is cited for the anecdote that Charles IX. had just begun a game when he heard that the
Huguenots were swimming the Seine, and that he rushed at once to the window in the Louvre and shot at them with his famous harquebuss. Several notices of the game have come down from the fifteenth century. A preacher in the time of Joan of Arc is said to have frightened the Parisians into seriousness, so that the disciples of the new Savonarola made bonfires in every quarter, and kept them alight with packs of cards and billiard-balls and cues. Francois Villon in the Petit Testament makes a bequest of his favourite cue to the poor prisoners in the Rue St. Antoine ; and in a rondel by Charles d'Orl6ans we find the lines :—
"Trs fort vous avez combattu,
Et j'ay mon billart bien tenu."
This is not the place for discussing the dynamics of the game, or the meaning of such terms as " spontaneous rota- tion," screw," "follow," "transmitted side," and so forth. It is sufficient to say that Major Broadfoot has shown con- siderable skill and patience in explaining the matter. He uses such simple language and apt illustrations that it be- comes almost easy to regard the balls as cog-wheels working together on a toothed-plane, to learn the art of jumping over an obstacle, or to speculate on a stiff resistance from the bristling nap. It is true, nevertheless, as the contributors to this work insist, that to look at diagrams will not teach us to rival the Frenchman who can make the ball move in a parabola, and that more can be learned from a player in an hour than from a book in a year. Major Broadfoot points out that much may be learned from a good manual, both by the beginner and his instructor. The case of the amateur with a poor style is far more dangerous; but there is hope even for him, if he have good nerve, judgment, and temper, "accompanied by fair sight, a fine touch, and sympathy between eye and hand." It appears, however, that the amateur requires most instruction in the matter of etiquette. He is bidden to imitate the orderly proceedings of the public room, where the players neither smoke nor interrupt, and the spectators are courteous and silent ; and this is perfectly good advice, if it be true that the players ought to be considered as supreme, the table, light, fire, &c., being all "theirs for the time." We doubt whether such counsels of perfection could be applied to country-horse games, more especially in the case of a ladies' battle such as Mr. Lucien Davis has included in his excellent set of illustrations. We should be sorry to take the "fun and excitement " from the cork-pool and the " snooker's-pool " and the noisy Italian skittle-game. These amusements are some- what too lightly described as being those in which ladies can take part. When the ladies take a cue, it is said, such games are only meant to pass the time or to prove an excuse for a mild bet. Major Broadfoot him- self sees no reason why they should not greatly excel in the serious game; "as a fact, some, a very few, do play almost as well as good club-players ; they can make from twenty to forty points in a break, and this being so, work is all that is required to raise their standard." The game, in his opinion, is a healthy one; but this perhaps depends on accidents of lighting and ventilation. We may agree, however, that as a rule it educates both the muscles and the mind. We are reminded that billiards is only a game of relaxation " except for professional players and a very few specially circumstanced enthusiasts." It must be indulged within such restrictions that the amateur can never hope to approach professional form ; and the calculation seems to be that the man who spends his life at it will be from ten to fifteen times as good as the ordinary enthusiast. This vast difference might perhaps be somewhat lessened by care and patience, and we think that the editor and his colleagues are quite justified in hoping that the manual on which they have worked so hard " may contribute to so desirable a result."
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