To the Editor.
In an article in your last issue you comment upon Colonel Western's book on Billiards and invite correspondence upon his method of naming the various ball aims. I submit with all deference to your remarks, that this new method is not an improvement on the old.
Col. Western contends that the present aims are misnamed because we have to "accept as our datum point a vague point in space." Now this is precisely what the Colonel does himself, and he merely reverses the accepted nomenclature for the liner and fuller than half-ball aims.
You say that for a seven-eighths ball aim Col. Western would direct the cue ball at a point seven-eighths of a diameter from the centre of the object ball. It seems to follow, therefore, that an eight-eighths (or full ball) aim would be at a point a full diameter distant from the centre of the object ball, which would consequently be just grazed by the cue ball.
If, however, Col. Western defines the full ball aim as being (as we now know it) that for the straight potting of the red, we have this novelty—that an eight-eighths ball aim gives the thickest contact of all and a seven-eighths ball aim gives almost the thinnest—which is somewhat illogical.
Referring to the first paragraph of your article, permit me to point out that in the Badminton Book on Billiards not only are the various aims fully defined but complete explanatory diagrams are given showing the different contacts and the directions taken by the balls after impact.
A. LONG BROWN.
Muswell Hill,
12th February, 1912.
[Col. Western does not say in his book that an "eight-eighths" ball is a full ball and that a seven-eighths ball is a grazing ball. He takes the full ball aim as the starting point for all aims and names each aim according to the extent of its deviation from the full ball, which he regards (and we think rightly) as a definite and logical starting point. If a half-ball aim is half a diameter from the centre, we do not see why a quarter-ball aim should not be made at a quarter diameter from the centre and a three-quarter ball aim at a three-quarters diameter from the centre. What appeals to us the most strongly in the proposed new nomenclature is that it refers to aim rather than contact and in so doing embraces contact also, whereas a student who is at present merely shown what a quarter or three-quarter ball contact is, is not at all helped in the matter of aiming. We suggest to our readers who are interested in the scientific aspect of billiards, so far as ball contacts, directions, and strengths are concerned, the purchase of Col. Western's book itself, so that his arguments may be taken as a whole.
The chapter on the half-ball stroke is alone worth the 3s. 6d. charged. A true half-ball stroke, for instance, impels the object ball at an angle of exactly 30 degrees, which is what not one of the set-up familiar half-ball positions on the billiard table does.—Ed. B.M.]