The Billiard Player has received from Mr. Walter E. Bartrum, of 10, Argyll Road, Kensington, W.8, a pocket scoring device for billiards, in the shape of an ivorine disc, on each side of which, in concentric form, are three ranges of figures, to which, from the centre of the disc, elastic bands, easily movable by the thumb and finger, radiate. By an ingenious arrangement these bands pass easily over each other to the required point, and their tension amply suffices to keep them fixed at the proper scoring points.
The device scores units up to the hundred, successive hundreds up to two thousand, and visits to the table up to 50. Perhaps the idea (which undoubtedly has distinct merit and value) is more applicable to private practice than to ordinary play, as the handling of the personal disc in a game may not always be so satisfactory to an opponent as the more public scoring board.
But for practice the device is admirable, and a player who uses it will quickly gain reliable information as to his average playing capacity.
His method would be as follows:—Playing alternately with the spot and plain ball (and not, of course, seeking to leave with spot an easy start for plain or vice-versa), he would count his score at each hand until he broke down, and then adjust both the scoring and the "visits to the table" band. If he liked to carry his lest to three or five hundred he could quite easily do so. Voila tout.