To the Editor.
In The Billiard Monthly for October, I see mention of hotel tables. Couldn't you point out, without doing harm, the importance and advisability of hotel keepers seeing that their tables, cues, etc., are kept clean?
Last week I was at a first-class hotel in the North of England, and one evening played a 50 up with a lady. She (and I) noticed how dirty her hands were, also the cues, balls, and table tops.
I look a piece of note paper and wiped a cue hard once; same with table tops. Result: Absolute filth not dust. I could "squee-gee" with my thumb nail muck out of the wood. The table was oak, unpolished. There were four tables in a splendid room, uncared for, never ironed, seldom brushed, and cues never sponged so the attendant said.
(This youth is in sole charge at 5s. a week and keep.) We didn't trouble those tables again. I have written strongly to the manager. He admits, and promises an improvement.
B. Wardle.
Danesford Grange, Bridgnorth. Shropshire.
October 6. 1913.
To the Editor.
In the October number of your paper Mr. Riso Levi has written a letter to you which refers to my articles on "The Peculiarities and Effects of Side on a Ball." He says that after reading my article many may conclude that I am the only writer who has attempted to explain the reason why the cue ball leaves the object ball so differently, according as to whether the stroke is played with running side or check side. He then gives a quotation from a part of his book, to prove the contrary. In the beginning of my articles, in the June number, I stated that so far as I was aware, no explanation of the reason of the peculiarities produced by side had been dealt with. If, besides Mr. Riso Levi, there are other writers who have dealt with the reason of these peculiarities, I make my apologies now to them, as well as to him. I have read many books on billiards, but so far I have not come across anything dealing with what I have been writing about.
Mr. Levi also says: "Has he not inadvertently used the words running side for check side, and check side for running side." No, it is quite correct as I have written it.
Mr. Levi quotes from his book the reason or explanation he gives of side affecting the pace at which the cue ball leaves the object ball; I do not know whether he has given an explanation of the reason why the angle of recoil is altered too.
Though Mr. Levi does not say about which axis the ball is rotating, I assume he means the axis of spin, as he likens the way the cue ball leaves the object ball when played with running side to the way it leaves a cushion; the cue ball spins off the object ball as it spins off a cushion.
This is how I understand Mr. Levi's explanation. If this is the case, how is it that the angle of recoil is wider and not narrower? When the ball meets the cushion it spins off it at an angle narrower than the natural angle of rebound, and if Mr. Levi is correct in his theory the same should hold good when the cue ball strikes the object ball.
As a matter of fact, exactly the reverse takes place, and running side is used to make the angle wider. If Mr. Levi cannot follow my argument I shall be very pleased to endeavour to explain it to him if he will write to me.
ARTHUR L. ONSLOW.
Llanidloes.
To the Editor.
I am sending along a little trick done with cues and balls, for what it is worth. I picked it up when quite a lad and have never seen it done by anyone else, although I have frequently shown it. Here it is: —Place six balls in line, about an inch apart, and not more than a foot from a cushion, with which the line is parallel. With two cues held in the hands, pick the balls up one at a time, with the tip ends: having picked up a ball one naturally tilts the cues so that the ball rolls down to the butt ends. In tilting the butt ends to pick up the next ball, the ball or balls already on the cues roll down and meet the next one after it is picked up, and all roll back together. This is continued until all are picked up. Then, holding the cue at an angle, so that the butts are about a foot lower than the tips, the balls are sent up and off one at a time.
R. FIRMAN. Chelmsford.