Billiard Incident and Humour

• Aiken was once playing in Peebleshire, and at the conclusion of the game gave a display of fancy shots. To wind up, he announced the "Good Night" shot, in which all the balls disappear. The shot was brought off successfully, but, in raising his cue, he struck one of the electric lamps, and the room was at once plunged into darkness. Truly a "Good Night" shot.
• The golfer carries his bag of clubs open and unashamed; the cricketer never seeks to hide his identity; the footballer invariably ties his boosts outside his bag, whilst lawn tennis players, bowlers, hockey players fishermen, and the rest are equally candid. But when it comes to billiards, the hundreds of thousands who indulge in the game as a recreation seem to be ashamed of being seen carrying a cue.—"Pyramids" in The South Wales Argus.
• Melbourne Inman, as well as being a billiard player and an acute judge of horse-flesh, is also a connoisseur of fine old furniture. His latest discovery was made in a little out-of-the-way shop, where he discovered a magnificent specimen of a Buhl table, which he bought for £30. When it has been fixed up it will be worth hundreds. Willie Smith is now Looking for half-a-dozen Chippendale chairs for a couple of sovereigns apiece, as he feels he cannot allow Mel. to get one up on him.— Daily Graphic.
• The following occurs in Graham Balfour's "Life of Robert Louis Stevenson":—"Once only do I remember seeing him play a game of billiards, and a truly remarkable performance it was. He played with all the fire and dramatic intensity that he was apt to put into things. The balls flew wildly about, on or off the table as the case might be, but seldom indeed ever threatened a pocket or got within a hand's-breadth of a cannon. 'What a fine thing a game of billiards is,' he remarked to the astonished onlookers,—'once a year or so!' In Melbourne, devil's or pin pool is played, and recently a young man, charged with pocket-picking, explained the possession of seven shillings and sixpence by saying that he won a game of pool in a city billiard saloon. It was, he said, a pool of 1s. per cue, and there were nine players. The Crown Prosecutor argued that accused must have won 9s., then that the billiard marker charged 1s. per cue for the right to play, and finally that the marker retained 6d. per cue and gave the pool winner the other half. Confusion was getting worse confounded, when the judge (Mr. Justice Schutt), who evidently knew something about billiards, interposed. "The position is," he said, "that players each contribute 1s. to a pool. From the aggregate amount the billiard saloon proprietor deducts 1s. 6d. to pay for the use of the billiard table. The balance goes to the winner," Accused smiled and looked relieved—someone understood—while the Crown Prosecutor accepted his Honour's explanation and proceeded no further with his cross-examination.
• Writing in The Badminton Magazine on "The Position of Amateur Billiards, " Mr. A. D. Macmillan says he once saw a marker make ten consecutive spot strokes blindfolded by means of gentle screw-backs. The ball stopped exactly in the same place each time and the cue alignment (although Mr. Macmillan does not say this) must have remained the same for each stroke.
• An unwelcome visitor to a Sydney billiard room recently was a coloured man who had drunk in other things besides the beauties of the game. Producing a bottle of beer, he smashed it on one of the tables and burnt five holes in another table with a cigarette. In the police court the damage done was put at £25. Billiard cloths cost money in these days.
• Smith has won his great place in the billiards world because he is always supremely sure of himself. He may have doubts about some things, but he has no doubts at all that Willie Smith is a very clever young man. Reece is just as clever, but he is not sure about it; his belief in himself falters when the test is high— and he loses matches which he never ought to lose.— "Regent" (Frank Poxon) in The Daily News.
• During his tour in Australia, Aiken was once asked to arbitrate on a knotty problem. The player at the table had scored 98 to his opponent's 99, and was left with an easy in-off. In his excitement he banged the composition ball so hard that it split. Half of it rolled into the pocket, and the other half left the table. Aiken was asked to decide who was the winner. Thinking, however, that discretion was in this case better than prompt decision, he said he would refer the question to The Sporting Life, London.
• Inman tells a story concerning his cue and billiard ball case. Touring in South Africa, an engagement compelled him to take a cab to one of the mining centres outside Johannesburg. As he stepped into the cab the jarvey remarked: "There's a billiard chap named Inman going to play there to-night, and they are making a fuss of him; but he can't beat Ferraro." Then, looking at Inman's case, he added: "I suppose you are going out to take the photograph." At the finish of the journey there was, Inman says, no tip for that cabman.
• The late Charles Dawson was playing Roberts in 1899, receiving 6,000 in 12,000. At the same start Roberts had just beaten John North in the same handicap. During the first part of the Roberts-Dawson match one of Roberts's supporters approached Mannock in his rooms at the Hotel Victoria and said: "Who do you think will win?" Mannock replied that he thought Dawson would win. "Well, he can't," replied the other; "nobody will ever beat Roberts." Mannock suggested that Roberts was not so young as he used to be, and that Anno Domini might beat him. "Oh," said Roberts's backer; "I didn't mean any of your foreign players; I meant an Englishman