Most professional, and many amateur, billiard players, seem to deny that billiards is a science at all. They do not say this in so many words but whenever they hear of mathematical angles and the scientific adaptation of varying strengths to varying ball contacts they curl the lip and remark that these things are best taken care of by the eye and the" feel. "hey do not seem to realize that the accurate accomplishment of a stroke is merely applied science and that the laws that govern the motions of the balls under varying conditions is Science itself.
The great majority of billiard players gradually find their game, and we are not prepared to say that they are wrong.
But we do say that the preliminary stages of practice can be enormously shortened and confidence established at a much earlier date by an intelligent study of the theory of the game, and that Col. C. M. Western is of the same opinion is clearly deducible from the handsome volume just published for him at the quite inadequate price of 3s. 6d. by Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.
In conjunction with his informative book, Col. Western issues an appliance somewhat of a pantograph nature, which is so scaled upon its surface and so jointed that a player who uses this silent instructor can, it is claimed, tell (1) the point of aim and how any stroke can be made, (2) whether it is within his own personal power, (3) the different ways in which the same stroke (so far as the immediate score is concerned) can be made, (4) to what extent he comes short of intention, and (5) the most desirable ball placing for any specific stroke.
Col. Western admits that this may sound a pretentious claim, but we are bound to say that the portion of the book devoted to the" pointer "seems to fully establish what is alleged in its favour. We have not yet had an opportunity of practically testing the appliance, but hope to record some of our experiences of its use in the next number of The Billiard Monthly.
There is one thing, by the way, that Col. Western does not claim, and that is that the desired results can be achieved if the cue ball be not struck and the cue directed in a similar manner in all similar cases, and it is just here that one great value of the book seems to us to lie. In all the months of misapplied practice of the average beginner the most lamentable portion of the sum total of wasted time is that which arises from the neglect, from the very outset, to pay attention to the course of the object ball (or balls) in losing hazard and cannon play and to the course or destination of the cue ball in winning hazard play. The eye should be trained to take the double glance in the earliest stages of practice, and if this were done the cueist would always know whether he had aimed and struck as intended and would no longer be able to cherish the illusion that he had cued accurately merely because the immediate stroke— in which there is nearly always a considerable latitude for error—was achieved.
The photos on front cover page of this issue of The Billiard Monthly are (with the exception of that of C. Harverson and the small insetted ones) by the Sport and General Press Agency, Ltd., and for the attractive grouping idea we are indebted to Lotinga's Weekly.
A remarkable youthful billiard player has sprung into notice in Leeds in the person of Harry Taylor. Only fourteen years of age, he made on February 7th a break of 455 (453 off the red) while playing against Detective Helliwell, of the Leeds Police. The break was made on a strict standard table at the Cardigan Hall, Leeds, with ivory balls, the table being that used in a match by George Gray. This 453 off the red ivory ball is claimed to be a world's record,