Billiard Incident and Humour

• The late John Roberts was once at the house of Sir Reuben Sassoon, and King Edward, who was also there, suggested that Roberts and Lady Sassoon should play 100 up—level! "Let Lady Sassoon score in the usual fashion," he said; "but Roberts must be limited to a single shot every time he goes to the table! The match was played. And Lady Sassoon beat John Roberts in a match for a hundred up—level—by three points!

• Three amateurs were playing three-pool. Red opened by doubling white into the right-hand bottom pocket. Yellow avenged white by doing exactly the same to red, and white made matters even by treating yellow to a precisely identical shot. Strange to say, red, with his second shot, holed white just as before—four consecutive doubles into the same pocket —and, though yellow spoiled the average by only doubling red into the right hand middle pocket, white made things all square and yellow disappeared into the original pocket.

  

  J. W. Trinder

  Thus six consecutive doubles were made, five of them into one pocket. The foregoing appears in the Badminton Library book on billiards, by Major W. Broadfoot, who says that such a sequence of doubles is probably without precedent, but that the story is absolutely vouched for. It is; for although the story was recorded twenty years ago, the marker under whose supervision the game was played (at the United University Club) still lives, and his portrait is here given. He is Mr. J. W. Trinder, for forty-five years at the club named above, and now 75 years of age. Until quite recently he has been at the Conservative Club.

• An amusing story is told by "Q." in "The Diary of a Man About Town" in The Evening News, in which Mr. Horace Lingard, the 82 years' old actor-manager, who had a benefit matinee on April 20 at the Savoy, figures. The Green Room Club, of which Mr. Lingard is a life-member, is on a storey above the billiard match room at Thurston's, Leicester Square, and he was recently there playing snooker pool with an actor opponent fond of a joke, who surreptitiously put a red back on the table every time Mr. Lingard potted one. Meanwhile Stevenson and another leading professional were playing on the floor below and an old gentleman had got into the lift (the exclusive property of the Green Room Club) on the ground floor and pressed the button marked"billiard room"; this under the impression that he was bound for Thurston's. He took a seat and watched Mr. Lingard diligently potting and wondering why the reds never came to an end. Then in a hoarse whisper he asked his nearest neighbour,"Excuse me; which is Stevenson?"
• John Roberts (billiards), W. G. Grace (cricket), Tod Sloan (racehorsemanship), and "Georgie" Leigh (lacrosse) are said to stand out as champions in their separate metiers.
• What does a billiard ball do when it stops rolling?— Looks round! [It is not at all necessary that anecdotes and other items for this page should, in order to be acceptable, be new. Whether new or old, anything on the light or gossipy side of billiards that has occurred, or might reasonably have occurred, is welcomed.—Ed., B.P.]
• Names have been mentioned of famous cricketers who play, or have played, billiards well. These include E. M. Sprot, J. T. Brown, W. Lees, E. Hayes, W. Marlow, W. G. Grace, Ranjitsinhji, and L. Braund. Two well-known gentlemen cricketers in past years might have been added in Mr. R. D. Walker and Mr. G. M. Kelson, and if George Bennett, of Kent, was not a billiard player, there is at least no doubt that his brother Joseph was.
• A. L. Goundrill, who had the misfortune to lose a hand in the war, is now known as the one-handed billiard champion of England, and has just played before the King. There was, by the way (and may still be), an American named G. H. Sutton, who lost both hands as a boy in a saw-mill accident, cultivated handless billiards, and actually beat W. Hoppe, the present American champion, when the latter was known as the" boy wonder,"by 32 points in 200. He supported the cue within the elbow joint of the right arm and played over the left fore-arm. In making the masse stroke he held the cue vertically between the two fore-arms.
• A member of a local club, who writes feelingly, says that the committee has dismissed the caretaker, and its members in turn take charge of the club. The billiard table and accessories are rapidly deteriorating. It being nobody's duty to keep these in order, nobody does anything. One night recently two visitors started a game. After a succession of changed cues, miss-cues, lost tips, and flukes, one said to the other:" If billiards had been played here in Dante's time he ought to have been a visitor; he would have pictured another Inferno. It would be an ill-ventilated room with broken gas mantles, and a gas fire without bricks. A billiard table with a switchback bed and perforated pockets would be set upon an oscillating floor. The balls would be elliptical, and the cues of the corkscrew type without tips. Rests would be broken or missing. Concave and convex mirrors would line the walls. All who neglected their duty on this earth and permitted a good billiard table and accessories to go to the dogs, would be locked in this room, and compelled to remain until they had made a 100 break under existing conditions. And that would be never."