THE FORTHCOMING SEASON

WITH the first of November the billiard season may fairly be said to begin, and on this, the eve of its commencement, it may be as well to look forward and see what prospects there are for professionals on the one hand and the general billiard-playing public on the other.

Unfortunately last season was so exceptionally brilliant that for the forthcoming one to even equal it is almost more than can be expected.

The great American billiard tournament that took place last year in Oxford-street had, of course, the charm of novelty; and whether another similar attempt will meet with equal success to the first remains to be proved; considering, however, how great that success was, it will indeed be strange if some efforts are not made by the professional billiard players themselves to organise another one, and we strongly recommend the cattle-show week as the most likely period to ensure success.

First and foremost among forthcoming events is the championship, and we have every reason to believe that another match will take place at the latter end of December, shortly before Christmas day, W. Cook being the challenger of Roberts, jun., the present champion. As to the result of this match it would be perhaps premature to prophesy at present; we trust, however, both players will be in good form. Billiards as a science, for such indeed it is, has advanced during the last ten years with such giant strides, that it is impossible to say what we shall see ten years hence.

There is a tendency in all sports to imagine the present day the best. History and facts, however, ought to teach us better. Just as in a public school the junior boys regard the head of the school as a genius of surpassing brilliancy quite unapproachable by all the world besides, so, too, do admirers of the hero of the hour, not only in billiards but in other sports, and, indeed, in other spheres of life, continue to offer up their blind worship. Kentfield, Roberts, sen., Cook, and Roberts, jun., have each in turn been the god of many men's idolatry, and in all probability a fresh generation of equal, or even greater geniuses, may in turn occupy the shrine.

It is because we wish so well to billiards and professional players as a class, that we would fain run the risk of incurring some little odium in calling attention to the good old maxim of "honesty being the best policy." Apropos of the purity of sport, we publish with much pleasure an extract from the Manchester Sporting Chronicle, in which a protest is made against the objectionable practice of announcing matches to be for stakes or prizes which exist, we cannot say even in the imagination of the promoters of such matches, but exist only for the purpose of deceiving the public and causing a false excitement which reacts with tenfold force against the very class who hoped to gain by the imposition.

Just as in the old fable when the boy cried "Wolf! Wolf!" the villagers came to his assistance and found that they had been tricked, so in advertising prizes or stakes when in reality none such exist, the effect is to deter real and genuine lovers and promoters of sport from offering any encouragement, simply for the reason that they may be exposed to the suspicion that that which they give is as unsubstantial in fact as what has too often gone before. We trust that professional players, on the one hand, will never lend themselves to this penny-wise and pound-foolish arrangement, and that patrons of sport will decide, without any exception, that when genuine prizes are offered for competition, they will make it a sine qua non that any proved guilty of complicity in such matters shall be debarred from any share of gain in straightforward and bona-fide matches. In our opinion, the sooner the sheep are separated from the goats and a deep gulf fixed between the two the better will it be for all parties, whether professionals or not, and we wish we could be backed up in our opinion by other of our contemporaries as boldly as in the extract to which we have referred.

It is, perhaps, practices such as we have referred to which render the prospect of the ensuing season so dark; it is therefore with pleasure that a gleam of bright sunshine is discernible in the dark horizon.

The Alexandra Palace Company have of late proved themselves pioneers in the task of hewing a way through the forests of difficulty that hem in sport, no matter of what description, and there is some talk of a grand billiard entertainment being given there this winter. Judging from what has gone before, there can be no doubt of such an enterprise being crowned with as much success—a success that, like charity, is twice blest, inasmuch as both the giver and receiver reap alike, reward.

We may here mention that the present billiard rooms at the Alexandra Palace are under the management of Messrs. Bertram and Roberts, and we need but state that the arrangements for the comfort of the players are equal to those that have for so many years been made for the refreshment of the inner man in their other, and perhaps better known, sphere of action, to show that the billiard room at the Alexandra Palace is equal to any in London.

It is co-operative principles that billiard players should look to. The mere giving away of a sum of money has, like indiscriminate charity, a demoralising effect. A good business transaction, in which capital and labour meet and agree, is more often productive of a healthy tone of feeling than where a patronising attitude is assumed on the one hand, and consequently a struggling, rebellious feeling of independence engendered on the other.

We trust that there will be more of this feeling in the ensuing season; we should like to see professional players less pampered toys, and more manly, more independent, and more self-reliant, for in proportion as they are so will they be respected.