Their Qualities for the Game.—How to Encourage Their Zest for it.
Women, when properly taught and sufficiently in earnest, learn billiards more quickly than men as a rule, writes a correspondent of The Times in a recent article. They do not hit too hard, which is the besetting sin of the male tyro; they have a keener sense of the importance of form, cherishing it until the verge of formality is reached; and, much more often than not, the failures of apprenticeship do not cause them to lose their temper or their temperament.
The discipline of ages (which is by some thought to have been a salutary thing) has given them the cheerful self control which is the basis of the billiard player's temperament.
They do not want to drop a mild expletive in the nearest pocket when a stroke has been bungled; it is seldom that they talk to the balls. And this equanimity (worth 15 in the 100) is not the result of indifference or diffidence; it is the outcome of that power of keeping the nerves in hand which is the first step towards obtaining the faculty of concentrating all one's attention on the next move in the building up of a break.
After all, there is no game which exhibits a good figure, both statically and dynamically, so well as billiards. For that and all other reasons suggested above the less nervous sex or the sex with more nerve (these terms are not idle compliments) should certainly return to the billiard room and resume the study of a healthy, fascinating game which was interrupted by the creation of bridge out of whist, as a butterfly is evolved from a caterpillar.
That billiards can be made attractive to ladies and compete with the allurements of bridge is the gist of an article by H. W. Stevenson in the current number of Fry's Magazine, in the course of which the champion—dealing with the necessary handicapping of the male contestants—says: "The better player engages not to count any scores below a minimum, but to score whatever there is in excess of them. The opponent gets along with no restrictions beyond those imposed by the rules. In this manner a champion and a tyro can be handicapped to provide a close finish.
For all-round amusement such as a house-party gathering requires—a tournament of 10 points up, all the competitors starting level and meeting one another in turn, with the player scoring the most games declared the winner—is difficult to better. The ordinary "50 up" is rightly considered to be anybody's game among fairly smart players, and a "10 up" is just five times more uncertain in its issues.
"At any length of points, though, the stronger players will have the pull in the long run. Their superiority may be checked, however, by their being debarred the use of the losing hazard. This means that nothing else but "pots" and cannons can count to their score, and that any losing hazard, voluntary or involuntary, is placed to the opposition account."