The article on "The Disabilities under which Amateurs Labour," which appears upon page 1 of this issue of The Billiard Monthly, was written before Mr. H A. O. Lonsdale's letter on spot-stroke abolition appeared in The Evening News of the 5th inst It will be seen that the views of The Billiard Monthly are not altogether in accord with those of the amateur champion, although we agree that two sets of rules—the one for amateurs and the other for professionals— are not desirable. Our point is that the spot stroke should never have been barred, and that it ought to be reinstated, alike in the professional and the amateur game. The professional could not make sustained use of it, except by specializing for years, as Peall did, and would not if he could, because no one would pay to see it played.
Meanwhile, the amateur would persistently practise it, and would thereby be learning practically a great deal in pyramids and pool, and much that there is in billiards, and especially in top-of-the-table play.
Mr. Lonsdale writes as follows — I disagree entirely with the contention that there is too much legislation for the amateur billiard player.
The strongest argument I can bring forward to prove this is the fact that every alteration in the rules, which are formulated by the leading professionals, has been adopted and adhered to by quite 99 per cent. of the average players, whether members of the National Sports' Club or the working men's club.
In what may be termed our national sports, cricket, football, golf, tennis, bowling, etc., both professionals and amateurs play under the same rules and conditions.
Why, then, should these rules and conditions be altered in the game of billiards, which has more practical exponents than all the other games mentioned put together?
The ambition of every amateur billiard player who takes an intelligent interest in the game (and without this interest he will never get above the medium stage) is to become a budding Roberts, Stevenson, or Gray; but what chance would he have of becoming either if he played under conditions very much in his favour as compared to the professional?
Another argument against hiving professional rules and amateur rules is the fact that during the last two to three decades the ordinary amateur's play has improved at least forty in one hundred. At any well-known billiard-room or hall you may daily see some amateur make his three-figure break, but twenty to thirty years ago it would have been thought wonderful.
Have our professionals made the same progress? I think not. With the exception of Inman, I think all our leading players are not so good as they were four to five years ago.
The leading amateurs of to-day are quite as good as the majority of our third-rate professionals, and you can practically count on your fingers the number of our first and second-rate players in that class. At this rate of improvement it is possible that it will not be long before billiards will be the same as many of our other sports, and some rising billiard player who has been trained and made to play the game as we make our children learn the piano, will, as an amateur, be as good as any professional.
The main points on which we differ from Mr. Lonsdale are his assumption that because 99 per cent. of amateurs adopt and adhere to the rules they are, therefore, in favour of them, and his suggestion that professional play has declined and amateur play improved since the abolition of the spot stroke.
The rules are adopted and adhered to by all amateurs simply because there is nothing else for them to adopt and adhere to. With regard to the improving or declining averages of professionals and amateurs, we should say that the professional average has enormously increased with the development of the top-of-the-table game, whilst the general amateur average (always allowing for improvement in tables and appliances) has remained practically stationary.
And we suggest that this is largely due to the respective knowledge and ignorance by the two classes of the scoring potentialities that cluster around the spot, and by the facilities for perfection of game afforded by long matches to the one, but which are denied to the other.