Here and There Notes

• There was a sensational finish to the South African Billiard Championship at Johannesburg, Cecil Harverson, the well-known English player, beating Frank Ferraro by 24 points in a 16,000 up game. At one stage Harverson led by no fewer than 2,135 points, while once during the final session Ferraro was 325 in front, and only required 218 for game. He then paid twenty-three visits for only 66 points, and Harverson, plodding along, won amid great excitement.
• Next February Smith will again play in Leeds. His opponent this time will most probably be Newman or Falkiner. The match has been arranged by George Nelson, who thus places the leading players of the day: Smith, Inman, Newman, Falkiner.
• It is stated that a feature of the evening in connexion with a recent amateur billiard handicap was billiard skittles. Does this really need encouraging? Is not there enough skittles in billiards proper as sometimes played?
• Mr. Luff, a member of the Lewisham Volunteers (19141919) Club, is spoken of as a possible candidate for amateur championship honours in the future if his professional duties permit. He is stated to have averaged 20 in 500 up.
• Newman and Lawrence were a familiar combination ten years ago as boy billiardists.
• Mr. F. Ward, the amateur billiards champion, SouthWest London, has now played 100 matches, and raised nearly £2,000 for charities. H.M. the King has already recognized Mr. Ward's efforts on behalf of charities, notably St. Dunstan's.
• An amateur billiard championship is suggested for Walthamstow. But there ought to be one for every considerable area of population, and for every county in the United Kingdom.
• The opening miss in baulk with side is well-known. Perhaps it is not so well known that if the ball is struck a hard plain ball and driven an inch outside the baulk line it will come back into baulk the second time across the table by means of the side imparted to it by the cushion.
• An amateur who was asked why he had had the pockets on his table made so tight, replied that it was in order that those on other tables on which he played might seem more friendly to him. On the other hand, Major Broadfoot, in Badminton Billiards, advises the compiling of practice breaks on easy tables, as they then become more a matter of course to a player who otherwise becomes unnerved as he approaches the hundred.
• After one-armed billiards, one-legged. At Wenlock Barracks, Hull, Mr. H. Nelson played a. match with Mr. C. Weldon. They are both ex-Service men. The result was a win for Mr. Weldon, the scores being 100—68. Mr. Nelson travelled from Darlington expressly for the match, in which the artificial limbs were dispensed with and "hopping" substituted. One is a right and the other a left-leg man.
• A ball that is screwed into a top corner pocket from the D does not revolve forward until after the collision with the red has taken place.
• At an informal luncheon that Messrs. Burroughes & Watts are giving, Smith will be presented with the first tournament prize of £200 and Newman with the second prize of £50. The latter will also receive £100 as a souvenir of his wonderful break of 1,024.
• Geo. Thompson, the Sunderland billiard professional, has registered a score of seven at golf billiards (potting the red in all six pockets from the middle spot). Is this a record? asks a correspondent.