The following communication has reached us, and, whilst we do not necessarily adopt all that it contains we think that as representing a point of view it deserves to be classed amongst the "Things that Matter in Billiards." Our correspondent writes:
As the comments that have hitherto appeared with reference to the Billiards Control Club's recent definition of a billiard amateur have been almost uniformly hostile, it may, perhaps, break the monotony a little if I venture to express my own belief in the wisdom and justice of the new ruling—at any rate, so far as the barring of gentlemen who are the proprietors of tables let for hire are concerned.
As stated in the last issue of The Billiard Monthly the Council of the Billiards Control Club has resolved to institute an open amateur championship under Billiards Control Club rules. In order to insure that none but bona fide amateurs can enter, the Council have laid down the following conditions: —
The following are not eligible:—
1. Professionals who have been, or are, earning money by playing the game.
2. Anyone who has marked or is marking the game, for which service he is, or has been, in receipt of a wage or money fee.
3. Anyone holding a post as manager, salesman, clerk, or is working in any capacity in the offices or factory of any billiard table manufacturer or supplier of billiard goods.
4. A proprietor or manager of a public billiard saloon.
5. Anyone holding a licensed victualler's licence, or anyone employed in any capacity in a licensed house in which a billiard table is situate.
Somewhat singularly, no objection is taken by the numerous critics who have written on the subject to the barring of the proprietor or manager of a public billiard saloon, where no excise licence is held, but considerable opposition is manifested against the exclusion of the owners of public billiard tables who are also the proprietors of hotels or public-houses. That strikes me as being as much as to say that the owner of a public billiard room who obtains an excise licence should thenceforth rank as an amateur, and that the holder of an excise licence carrying a billiard licence who becomes the holder of a billiard licence only shall automatically cease to be an amateur.
The main objections to the new rule are (1) that it casts a slur upon the holders of hotel and similar licences, and (2) that it robs the amateur side of the game of some of its finest exponents. In my judgment it does neither, and the idea that underlies the entire list of exclusions is plain to anyone who considers it with an unprejudiced mind.
Why should anyone who has at any time earned money by playing the game be for ever barred as an amateur?
Why should anyone who has at any time earned money by marking the game be for ever barred as an amateur?
Why should the manager or employee of any billiard appliance manufacturer be barred as an amateur? The answer to these questions can only be that it is felt by the Council of the Billiards Control Club that any such individual might possess an unfair advantage over persons entirely outside the trade by reason of his special facilities and opportunities for perfecting himself at the game. And it seems to me that the same idea applies with equal and even greater force to all holders of licensed houses in which a billiard table is situate.
Such tables are a source of profit to their owners, and upon them unlimited practice is possible to their proprietors without additional expense and without difficulty in the way of obtaining a constant succession of good and experienced opponents.
The answer may be made that the owners of private Billiard tables have equal opportunities of becoming thoroughly proficient, but a moment's reflection will show that this is not so. In a hotel both the table and the proprietor who cares much for the game are available for play at almost any hour, whereas in a private house play usually depends upon the dropping in of a friend after the ordinary business of the day is concluded, and this may not occur once in a week. It is, of course, conceivable that a very enthusiastic amateur billiardist who possesses his own table might practise alone for hundreds of hours on end and so become an accomplished exponent of the game, but this continuous practice by one's-self—admirable in its way— will always represent the exception rather than the rule amongst amateurs and cannot even then be compared, as a preparation for serious encounters, with the heritage of nerve-control and concentration which follows constant play in publicroom environment. This class of play, it should furthermore be noticed, usually commences at a very early age, and many who have, as hotel proprietors, become famous amateur exponents of the game, first turned their attention to it as mere youths practising interminably on their fathers' public tables.
The second objection—that the new rule deprives the amateur game of some of its most brilliant exponents—is really an argument in favour of the rule. It puts hotel owners in a class by themselves, and that is precisely what the ordinary advanced amateur objects to. He has felt that against special opportunities for constant practice under fighting conditions such as the hotel proprietor possesses he has scarcely a chance. Billiards is with him just one recreation amongst a number. He has his quite different business or profession to follow during the day, and if he has to play himself into form for a serious billiard encounter, or to perfect his methods by practice, it has to be done during such evenings as he can spare from other engagements. With the owner of a hotel in which a billiard table is situate it is, as I have endeavoured to show, an altogether different matter.
At the same time it is regrettable that the necessity for making anything like an invidious distinction should have arisen. Such necessity ought not, in my judgment, to have come about. It ought to have occurred to the earlier controllers of the amateur game, that the dividing line between earning money by playing upon a billiard table and deriving profit from games so played was so exceedingly fine as to constitute at least a doubt, which the further consideration of the unlimited opportunities offered for free practice by such conditions would probably have resolved into a certainty. Happily, a way out of the disagreeables of the case—if such really exist has apparently been discovered by The Morning Advertiser, which is the recognized organ of the licensed victualling interest. That enterprising journal has organized an annual amateur competition open to licensed victuallers residing within a radius of 90 miles from Charing Cross, London; the term "licensed victuallers" to include license-holders, all principals, partners, and managers. In connection with this competition a silver challenge cup of the value of 50 guineas is offered, together with sixteen sectional gold medals, and I have no doubt that this competition, if heartily entered into, will result in a very high level of play being exhibited, together with an average on the part of the winner that will yearly exceed that registered in any amateur competition from which licensed victuallers are largely on the ground of their exceptional opportunities for practice barred from the right of entry.