Billiard Incident and Humour

• A prominent Government official, staying at a hotel, asked the spot boy his name. "What do they call you," he said. "Billiard cue, sir," replied the youth. "That is a funny name. Why do they call you that?" remarked the official. "Because I work better when I'm tipped," replied the enterprising; youngster.
• "I remember hearing old John Roberts, when everyone was wearing the highest possible collars, telling a man that he was playing 15 in 100 under his game, simply through the collar he was wearing. This showed the old champion's great knowledge of the smallest minutiae of the game."—J. P. Buchanan in "Hints on Billiards."
• A billiard hall proprietor was granted a summons at Willesden, on March 28, against a player who was alleged to have persisted in climbing on the table to make his strokes, and, when remonstrated with, smashed a window. Meanwhile a correspondent writes asking us whether a marker in a room where there are two tables, for only one of which he is calling the game, is justified in penalizing for a foul a player on the other table who made his stroke with both feet off the ground. It would almost seem as though some players are more anxious to evade the rules than to observe them.
• Writing in The Sports Post, Leeds, George Nelson, ex-Yorkshire professional billiards champion, mentions the fine play in the Leeds Amateur Championship of Mr. H. Blackburn, of Blackburn, and adds:—"Mr. Blackburn, of Blackburn, reminds me that my address was once 'Nelson, of Nelson.' I spent six months there, and afterwards, on a return visit, my address was even mere curious. It was G. Nelson, Nelson Hotel, Nelson Street, Nelson. While I was there my wife sent me a postcard as follows:—'Mr. J. Nelson called to see Mr. G. Nelson, but Mrs. G. Nelson told Mr. J. Nelson that Mr. G. Nelson could only be seen at the Nelson Hotel, Nelson Street, Nelson.'"
• A London correspondent tells us how he failed to win "the snooker club handicap final that his opponent has just lost. Pink and black were left. He required both, and his opponent one. His opponent, playing across baulk, cut the pink in the corner baulk pocket, and for the moment had won the handicap. But the cue ball, bearing check side, came back from the opposite cushion and fell in the pocket on top of the pink. Our correspondent, still short of the required points, went for a middle pocket gentle pot of the black, which came off the shoulder towards the centre spot, leaving the white under the cushion below the same pocket. His opponent tried another cut, this time for the opposite middle pocket, and missed, but the white, having almost as strong an affection for the black as it had had for the pink, pursued its way to and from the top cushion and landed in the same pocket as that aimed for with the black. The prize, of course, was duly awarded to our correspondent, although he had not "won" it.
• I may as well tell you, writes a subscriber, of an interesting affair that happened to me last week. I consider myself a little above the average as a player, as I make an occasional 50 and 60 break. But in a four-handed 250 up recently I excelled myself, making my first century (115), and immediately afterwards 97. But what follows is the interesting part. I was in hand with the red on the spot, and I was making a desperate effort to screw off the red to make the 97 into 100. I got the shot, but the red bounced off the table and was lost, and could not be found anywhere. The next players required the pool balls, which stood on a seat in a bottle-necked basket, and, emptying the balls out in the usual way, they found amongst them the missing red ball.
• The late John Roberts could show the original warrant of his appointment as" Our Court Billiard Player " issued by the Maharajah of Jeypore. This post carried a retainer of £500 a year, with special fees when called upon to give exhibitions, and only lapsed now because its holder did not trouble to seek re-appointment on the death of his employer. Among his other treasured possessions were the Pyramids Championship Cup, a large gold trophy manufactured in Geelong, and presented to him during a visit to Victoria; an elephant of silver filigree work, presented to him by the Nawab of Dacca; and a gold chalk-box, encrusted with diamonds, from the Maharajah of Patiala.
• American billiard players never speak of side on a ball in any other way than as "right English" or "left English," as the case may be. How the term "English" for "side" originated I have never been able to discover. I have discussed the question with more than one American player, and also with one writer on the American game, without being able to elicit the required information. It may be that many years ago, when the effect of side on a ball first became well known, Englishmen who visited the States were in the habit of putting on "side" apart from billiards, as in the old days many Americans did when on a visit to Great Britain. If this is so, English players might have retaliated by coining the terms "right American" and "left American," but, fortunately, they did not do so.— Riso Levi in The East Anglian Daily Times.
• Last month The Billiard Player devoted a corner to three letters, intended to be regarded as ironical, in regard to "the disgraceful potting of the white," and the esteemed subscriber who wrote them (over such signatures as "Wynne Tighe Orwrangle") had remarked in sending them in that sometimes a little ridicule sufficed to kill long-standing prejudice where the most cogent argument failed. But there seem to be certain risks that are attendant upon the lighter method also, for The Billiard Player has since received letters expressing surprise that, after strongly defending the potting of the white in three issues, it should insert strong letters against the practice in the fourth. Perhaps it would have been better to add as a footnote (as Josh Billing's used to do) the words: "This is irony."