A good cue is necessary; a set of good ivory balls is important; but a properly-constructed table is indispensably essential if a game of real billiards is to be played. It is here that the knowledge and experience of the manufacturer need to be combined with large resources and a command of the best facilities and material that the market yields.
The frame must be substantially and rigidly built, unwarpable in any climate, and of the best and most durable quality. The cloth must be of the closest texture, finest material, and most careful finish. The bed—if the balls are to run truly, smoothly, and noiselessly—should be constructed of slates from the best quarries, planed and levelled to the extreme of exactness, and imposed upon equally level framework. Finally, the cushions must be accurate and uniform in construction, imperishable in substance, and the last and most scientific word alike in resistance and resiliency.
Somewhat singularly, the West of England has made for itself a name in connection with the manufacture of each of two main components of the billiard table, namely, the cloth and the slates. There is no billiard cloth that is at all comparable with that woven in West of England looms, whilst from the famous slate quarries of North Wales emanate the slabs that are quarried at Llanberis and Penryhn from the famous Cambrian, and at Festiniog from the Lower Silurian, formations. At the same time, excellent billiard table slate is obtainable from other British quarries and also from the Continent of Europe.
A visit to a large slate quarry is productive of much that holds the attention. Apart from the constant blasting operations, and the work that is busily carried on in galleries, on inclines, and in hoists swung at dizzy heights, there are interesting geological formations to be observed, and—at the other extreme of the scale of production—the treatment in the big planing machines of the dressed slabs.
Primarily deposited on ocean floors as fine sediment, and afterwards re-formed as rock, slate is freely workable but requires careful and experienced handling and selection.
The best billiard slate is extremely dense and durable, and, when planed and water-levelled according to the best modern methods, forms a perfect playing surface. The thickness of the slabs—five in number—for a full-size table should not be substantially less than two inches.
To the processes adopted in the weaving of billiard cloth detailed reference need not be here made, as practically the same principles are followed as are applied to the production of other superior double cloth. Suffice it to say that the best billiard cloth is distinguished by a quality, closeness of texture, and excellence of finish that raise it in its intrinsic value and its serviceable and durable properties above any other plain woven fabric that can be named.
A billiard table that is equipped with a good cloth is worthy of careful and constant attention on the part of its owner. There are errors both of omission and commission that it is well to avoid. After play the cloth should always be brushed before the cover is placed over it, but the excessive use of the iron should be avoided. Above all, the cloth should on no account be ironed while any particle of dust remains. The extreme instance of neglect of this rule is to be observed in some public rooms, where the cloth has a greasy appearance, which indicates that dust has, from time to time, been ironed into it. With proper care a good cloth may be played upon nightly for a couple of years and be still fresh in appearance and satisfactory in nap at the end of that period. Good billiards cannot be played on anything short of a perfect cloth; and when professional players are observed to remove a microscopical speck of dust from the table or a suspicion of chalk from the ball, this action must not be regarded as affectation on their part. They are sometimes called upon to play strokes at slow pace in which a hair's breadth of difference counts, and they cannot afford to take even that small amount of unnecessary risk. For the same reason, professionals and all good players object to an undue ironing of the cloth. They play according to a fixed condition of the cloth for certain effects, and if the nap be practically ironed away, such effects cannot be obtained.
It is far better to brush a table constantly than to iron it much; and, this having been said, it is unnecessary to add that to turn a billiard cloth end for end, or, worse still, to reverse it—both of which things are sometimes done—is as destructive of good play as anything that can well be conceived.
We now come to what may be termed the crowning point in high-class billiard table equipment, and that is the cushions. The prime requisites in a billiard cushion are, as has been indicated in an earlier paragraph, resistance and resiliency. The balls, in their run upon a properly-built and installed table, traverse a surface that is practically as firm and free from vibration as the earth itself. But when they are forced against a cushion the strain is shifted from the perpendicular to the horizontal; and it is at this point that the ordinary wooden foundations for the cushions are found to be deficient. From billiard tables built on the steel vacuum principle the wooden rails might be entirely removed without affecting in the least the rigidity and other qualities of the cushions. Again, from cushions thus fitted, a given stroke— no matter what may be its nature as to strength or angle— can be repeated with mathematical precision, smoothly, noiselessly, and with a rebound that is instinct with life and virility. Apart from the construction and fitting of the steel foundation, the utmost care is devoted to the building up and fixing of the cushions themselves; and in the manufacture of these, as well as in the selection of the rubber, foresight and precaution are exercised. By use of the best Para rubber, built up into cushions on the "strip"principle, perfect elasticity, continuous in any climate, is obtainable, and the resiliency obtained is so great that cushions can (if required) be made which will enable a ball to travel the length of a table no fewer than six times.
Para rubber is obtained in South America from a large tree upwards of 60 feet in height, branching from the base, and having trifoliate leaves. From near its base the caoutchouc juice or milk is obtained by means of connected horizontal, vertical, and lateral incisions. The juice, of which a given tree only yields about two ounces a day, is caught in small clay cups attached by their own substance to the tree. It is then moulded into small cakes according to a peculiar native method, which results in the production of the finest rubber that the world produces.
Many householders who do not already possess a billiard room might easily have one. Attic and basement floors are often readily convertible for this purpose, whilst two rooms can easily be thrown into one or a separate iron and matchboard room erected and connected by covered way.