It is a little singular that, in the demonstrations of losing hazard sequences that are being given by George Gray, the ball-returning device is not fitted to the match table. The red ball is so seldom pocketed in the course of a "Gray" session that there is really little for the "spot boy" to do beyond trundling the cue ball back to baulk, which the patent ball returner would do automatically in two seconds from any pocket. There would seem to be the more reason for the use of this device, inasmuch as the great bulk of the strokes are made into the middle pockets, or at a considerable distance from where the spot boy is standing, and the continual gyrations of this young gentleman around the whole of the top half of the table have already afforded subject for the humorous efforts of caricaturists in various newspapers.
If the ball returner would be useful during such demonstrations as those of Gray—besides adding interest and promoting more rapid sequences—it should prove simply invaluable to the hundreds of amateurs possessing billiard tables who are now sedulously practising the middle-pocket shot in private, but who have to walk half-way up the table between each stroke. This is inconvenient, besides being disturbing to the eye, which has little chance of becoming trained to the microscopically exact line of aim that is essential if the object ball is to be directed towards a given spot on the top cushion.
One thing is tolerably certain. Anyone who has been accustomed to use a ball returner in private practice would not like to be without it.