Jottings of the Month

• In last month's Billiard Monthly it was stated that Tothill had been included in the forthcoming Soho Square tournament. This was an error on the part of the writer of the paragraph, the selected player being Elphick, who, in common with Tothill, is an excellent young cueist.
• At Pretoria, Melbourne Inman, in a match against J. Lloyd, of Pretoria, made a break of 545, which is a record for South Africa. The previous record breaks in South Africa were: W. Mitchell 497, and Cecil Harverson's recent 499. At the New Club, Johannesburg, Inman, playing an amateur, Mr. Max Nathan, scored 1,000 in seventy minutes.
• Billiard followers will be pleased to know that Charles Dawson will be seen in public again and will begin the season with a match against W. A. Lovejoy at Leicester Square on October 2, to be followed by one against T. Aiken on November 14. Meanwhile Mrs. Dawson writes that her husband "has had no illness, but had to retire from his profession on account of the failure of his eyesight."
• Somewhat reminiscent of the old poser as to whether a pair of spectacles belongs to the eyes or the nose is a current dispute at Stoke, Staffordshire, as to whether a billiard table which was at the county police station in Stoke before Stoke was made a county borough now belongs to the county or the borough. The Chief Constable of the County thinks one thing and the Stoke Watch Committee another, and there at present the matter stands.
• Miss Ruby Roberts has been playing Miss Collins at Leicester Square during the month and has had little difficulty in demonstrating her superiority. On September 20 Miss Roberts made a break of 70, of which 54 were off the red, and on September 22 she eclipsed this with a fine all round break of 110.
• The second Stevenson-Lindrum match of 18,000 up— Stevenson conceding 4,000 and breaks off the red being limited to 75—concluded at Sydney on September 2. The Englishman was in brilliant form throughout, and the final scores were:—Stevenson, 18,000; Lindrum, 13,702. In the match which ended at Melbourne a fortnight previously, the Australian was successful by 3,564 points.
• In his five principal matches in Australia (whither he will return next winter) Reece scored 50,149 points and had 51,487 scored against him. He beat Lindrum and Memmott once, and was beaten twice by Lindrum and once by Stevenson. His best breaks were 426, 386, and 379, and his average per innings for the five matches was something over 36.
• An instructional target ball has been registered which has circles scored round it at intervals of a quarter of an inch from the edge and centre, and which must prove useful to the student when placed perpendicularly, as these four lines on each side of the centre and midway between each of them represent the only eight contacts (other than dead full) that have to be considered in billiards.
• By means of the principle of his self-levelling bunk, Mr. W. G. Boonzaier, of Cape Colony, says he proposes to make possible the playing of billiards at sea, his intention being to make not alone the billiard table, but the entire room in which it is placed, so steady that one will be able to manipulate the cue on board ship with the same sureness as on land. The Billiard Monthly has already mentioned other recent ideas of this kind.
• F. Lindrum, the "other" young Australian player, sailed from Sydney for England in the P. and O. s.s. Malwa, on the 19th September. He has made no match arrangements at present, but there would seem to be no real reason why Gray and he should not meet. By the way, Gray is leaving London for a tour in the West of England, and during November he will successively be at Southend and in the district of Newcastle. He is a free lance this season.
• J. Easterman has been spoken of during the month as the finger billiards champion, but we believe that Mr. de Kuyper disputes this designation. Playing F. West (cueist) at the Colchester Temperance Club, Whitechapel, on September 7, Easterman gave half the game in 1,000 up and won by 48. He made a break of 123 and is said to have made one of 1,400 and to have scored 353 in five and a half minutes. Perhaps this was off the top of the red over a pocket, by which means, however, even more could be scored in the time.
• Gray has at last encountered defeat, and in an unexpected quarter. Playing two games at Stockton, with W. Smith, junr., a young Darlington newspaper linotypist, Smith scored actually more points than Gray in the 4,500 game (in which he received 2,250 start) and in a short game, in which he received only 400 in 1,500, he again won. The fact is Gray was feeling his way from crystalates to bonzolines, although, according to the "greater throw off" argument, he ought to find these easier than crystalates.
• The opening match of the 1911-12 season (between Diggle and Aiken at Leicester Square) ended in a draw, the figures being: Diggle 17,626, Aiken (rec. 3,000) 17,433. Some great performances were put up by Diggle from time to time, but Aiken was remarkably good, and at the last session gave such a fine display that he scored more than 1,000 points in less than two hours. Then Diggle, for some reason, began to bang the balls about and the game was left drawn as stated.
• "Sport Junior," writing in Vanity Fair, says:—"Using the county championship as a model, the enterprising promoters of the tournament have decided to allot two points to the player who is leading at the half-way stage, and three points for a win outright. In addition, there will be 'merit marks' for breaks. Will the M.C.C. return the compliment by annexing the 'merit marks' notion, and giving a point to every batsman who makes a century or two, as the case may be, in the county championship?"