OUR editorial on "Billiards as a National Necessity" has brought together a symposium of opinion of great interest and importance. To give this its full and fair effect, every letter has been printed exactly as received.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
I was decidedly impressed by your editorial article on "Billiards as a National Necessity." In my opinion, we must realise as a nation that mechanisation need not enslave man, but should rather give him greater freedom. It need not mould him into a mechanical robot, but enable him to live nearer to his natural self, and bring increased health and happiness with the gift of shorter working hours.
Machinery must be regarded as the servant of mankind, ministering to the leisure and pleasure of the individual and alleviating his lot.
In the machine age men will require more leisure to preserve those qualities which make for the higher ideals of progress and character.
It may be thought that, as chairman of the governing body of the game, I may be inclined to claim more for billiards and other games played on a billiard table than is strictly allowable in a national sense, if I continue by giving my own views on "Billiards as a National Necessity."
It would be difficult to disassociate my views from an aspect of natural partiality if I ventured to be definite about our great game in such an important connection. For this reason alone I prefer to allow another to speak for me by reproducing, as evidence of my own feeling, the following letter written by Canon Williamson to The Times: — "Suggestions have been made in favour of fencing, rackets, etc. Why has no one mentioned billiards?
Those who have approached this game from a scientific point of view, under the guidance, say, of Willie Smith's" First Steps to Billiards," and have been keen, enthusiastic, and persevering, will agree that it is the game, especially in the winter months, par excellence. It is the most exact and the most exacting game in the world. Its infinite variety, endless possibilities, and thrilling interest are its unique features. Simply to knock the balls about is meaningless, and leads to nothing; but to study the game,
sometimes alone, sometimes with an expert at one's elbow, if no royal road, is a very pleasant one, giving a new interest and a most delightful recreation to a busy man whose mind must be alert in some direction."
JOHN C. BISSET, Chairman, Billiard Association and Control Council.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
Escape!
That is what billiards and snooker mean to the "man in the street."
Escape from the nerve-wracking office and workshop with its modern speeding-up and stress and strain.
Escape and rest.
The games played on a billiard table are a national necessity of great importance all the year round.
Young and old, rich and poor, men and women, can all enjoy them.
There is nothing like it.
Some months ago you published an article on "Billiards and Medicine," and it was illustrated by a drawing on which was written, "Two-fifty a day keeps the doctor away."
Perfectly true!
Tens of thousands of people play at our halls. Only a small percentage ever give up the game. It is a quiet, artistic, and beautiful thing in lives which modern business does its best to turn into a drab smudge.
Escape—that's the way of the Lucania lads when they tog up in full war paint and, cue in hand, say "I'll give the best man a couple of blacks!"
S. JACKSON, General Manager, Lucania Temperance Billiard Halls.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
As a journalist I once had occasion to ask a well-known man what was his favourite recreation.
"Work," was the reply.
And yet I dare swear that even he had moments of leisure, and if he did not put that leisure to the best use that is his loss.
Personally, I have found that reasonable relaxation is a tonic far better than any I can get from the chemist.
Not all of us have the physique— even if we had the inclination—to indulge in the more robust games.
In my younger days I had a spot or two of these, and them, some twenty-five years ago, somebody introduced me to a billiard table.
I have reason to thank that "somebody."
The play fired my imagination at once, and it has become with me a "personal necessity," incidental to my daily life.
After a hard day in the office chair it is a mental and physical tonic to me to play a friendly hundred up or a game or two of snooker.
I am afraid my play is not what it might be, and that I do not improve to the extent I should. But what does that matter so long as the relaxation relieves the concentration demanded by one's daily work?
Billiards has a fascination and charm all its own by reason of the infinite variety of strokes it offers.
And what a thrill there is in bringing off a shot that is perhaps a bit on the unorthodox side; one which your opponent had not thought of and leads him to ejaculate "good shot!"
Such moments are indeed a mental tonic, and I never fail to get a "kick" out of a game.
So far as the physical side is concerned there is more exercise in the game than most people think.
While I am not prepared to say that billiards is a national necessity— we all have our pet hobbies,—I will say that so far as I am concerned it is a personal necessity.
A SPORTS EDITOR.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
Your editorial is what I term stretching the long bow.
Of course, billiards is not a national necessity, nor anything like it. It never will be. Neither is it "the monarch of indoor games," nor the "one leisure spender," we can enjoy whatever the climatic conditions or the time of day.
Billiards does pass a hour or so pleasantly, but it is almost exclusively a man's game, and while it does afford certain mental exercise, it does nothing to tune a man physically.
You, apparently, are not aware of the very active interest in such splendid indoor games as badminton and table tennis. Take it from me, more and more people of both sexes —from youths to middle age—are playing badminton and table tennis from autumn to spring. In these games they get the vigorous recreation they need to keep up to concert pitch in their daily work.
Badminton and table tennis clubs are increasing by leaps and bounds.
I don't think it can be said the number of billiard players is increasing.
In the summer, of course, the young people of England, tens of thousands no longer young, take their physical exercises in God's good air.
They play cricket and lawn tennis, and go hiking.
Billiards in hot weather! No, sir!
The stuffiness of it. I have played in July, and I know.
Billiards will always be popular because there is practically no age limit for players. Sixteen to sixty, seventy, eighty. So long as a man can hold a cue he is able to get through his hundred or two hundred up. But to suggest billiards as important to a nation is, to my mind, the limit of exaggeration.
ARTHUR SIMMONS, Sports Editor, Daily Express.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
You and I have broken many a lance over the billiard table, and I think over the years the honours have been pretty equally divided. You strike an uncommonly clean hazard, winning and losing, for an amateur, and used to bring into practice a knowledge of the game that made me pull out all I knew in order to reach the 250 mark first. Let me hasten to admit that I did not always succeed, but, winning or losing, I always derived infinite pleasure in playing you.
That conclusion brings me to the subject of your very admirable leading article, because, in my humble opinion—and, as you know, I achieved a little distinction in the realms of cricket and football —there is no game in the world comparable with billiards. It brings out all that is best and worst in a man. Don't misunderstand me, please. By worst, I mean that if a man is a poor sportsman billiards will reveal the unpleasant fact, but at the same time even the irritable man, if he be made of the right stuff, can learn through billiards to conquer his weakness.
Billiards requires in a marked degree self-control and self-discipline. I have encountered many deplorable examples of bad sportsmanship in billiards in the course of my travels in Africa, Australia, and Japan, but I am glad to say that for every bad sportsman I met I bumped into a thousand fellows who were the salt of the earth, and who loved billiards for its own splendid sake.
You rightly describe billiards as a national necessity. I cordially agree.
I hate to see promising young fellows hanging round street corners or idling in our public parks. I always think how much better they would be relaxing in the right way over a billiard table. Happily the old idea that efficiency at billiards denoted a misspent youth has nearly died out, but the prejudice, unfortunately, still persists in some quarters, otherwise we should not witness the anomaly of public halls being closed on Sundays, though 'billiards is permitted in private clubs and —you laugh here —in police stations!! If it is wrong for the man in the street to enjoy a hundred up on Sundays, why should it be considered all in order for a copper to indulge. I am quite good at crossword puzzles, but this conundrum leaves me gasping.
And now, not to bore you further, let me again congratulate you on the excellent work you are doing for the finest game in the world.
ERIC MARTIN, Daily Herald Editorial Office.
[It is easy for me to pardon the solecism of the first person in my old friend's letter. Eric Martin, as I have known him for years, is not the sort of man to stand on ceremony. He says what he means to say, and does what he means to do. I have never known a better judge, or a more resolute executant, of the gruelling pot-white-double-baulk sequence. —ED.]
To the Editor BILLIARD PLAYER.
You have been good enough to devote a space in your journal to our views on the future possibilities of billiards on more than one occasion, and a condensation of those views might justly be interpreted as an intense conviction in our minds that if you awaken the latent interest and give the public modern conditions of play there is an enormous "army" of billiards enthusiasts.
It is needless, of course, to point out to a journalist like yourself the importance of advertising.
Probably the greatest advertisement an individual can obtain is to commit a murder, and at the other end of the scale the smallest is to do nothing at all.
We are not interested in either extremes, but somewhere along that path we, in common with all the concerns interested in billiards, can co-operate to lead this "leisure-laden sports-loving army" to take an interest in a recreation that will be beneficial to both themselves and the trade in general.
W. JELKS.
Does the game of billiards contribute something of real value to the nation? I think it does, for it provides an ideal indoor recreation for all of us, peer or peasant.
Yes, rich or poor, it is the same game for us all. We play well or we play badly, but what does that matter if we enjoy playing? Just nothing.
I have heard golfers say that when they are playing they forget everything else. The same thing exists in billiards. You get into a completely different atmosphere— an atmosphere of quiet content.
In the BILLIARD PLAYER there is this comment: — "We see it stated that in this machine age, taking mankind as a whole, two hours work a day would suffice to provide every necessity of human life the world over." Our readers can "believe it or not," as they please. We have no mission to winnow these statements. All that interests us is the bald fact that the mere bringing of them into the realm of discussion proves that the "leisure" of the worker must present the serious problem advanced by Sir H. Llewelyn Smith. It follows logically that this problem must concern those who cater for the filling of that "leisure" which brings us to the consideration of billiards as a national necessity.
When this aspect of billiards as a national necessity comes to us as we now see it, the vista is very different from that of the few idealists who have so seen the game for years past.
Instead of the voice in the wilderness we have the voice of science. We are told that, as the man in the street would put it, the worker is shaping towards a destiny which means "play first, work second." This is a tremendously arresting thought.
What is there in it for billiards?
Most assuredly much more than the game has ever held before. We have in billiards the admitted monarch of our indoor games; the one "leisure" spender we have which can be enjoyed rain, blow, hail, or snow, by night or by day, anywhere throughout the length and breadth of the earth."
That is very aptly expressed, and I can only dot the I's and cross the T's. Billiards provides recreation for mind and body; it is, indeed, the king of indoor games.
More than that, it is a social game, and it is on that side of it I should like to see improvement.
Men and women enjoy themselves in golf and lawn tennis—why not in billiards? The game is exactly suited to the feminine sex, whose delicacy of touch should be an asset. The sense of touch is the most important thing in billiards.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
I was very much interested in your article, "Billiards as a National Necessity," and as this greatest of indoor games has been my special " flair "since the time I was tall enough to see over the top of a billiard table, I should like to endorse your remarks.
It is a very big question, this providing" employment for the leisure "of the people. In consequence of present-day machines, work goes on at such a pace that the nerves of the human race are naturally more affected than they were a generation or so ago, and even if the hours of work are shorter the lives of the workers are more strenuous, and as a set-off the " play-hours "should be made interesting and health-giving.
As billiard hall proprietors now provide such wonderful facilities for playing under ideal conditions for men and women enthusiasts, there seems no excuse why full advantage should not be taken by the public of filling in a great part of their " leisure "enjoying a game that combines healthy exercise for the body and brain, at the same time teaching patience and perseverance, which are useful assets these days especially.
Yes, billiards is a national necessity, and now the ladies are getting so keen on it I predict that there will be a" boom "in this popular game for the future.
BRODIE CARPENTER.
Solent Cliffs Hotel, Bournemouth.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
Many thanks for your editorial.
It is true that the time is near when working hours will have to be reduced; it will mean more hours for leisure." All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Machinery is helping us to do more work, both mental and physical; it will continue to do so; that will mean the hours of labour being reduced and more people will be employed; that stage is nearer than many people think.
Employers, even the big ones, think their machines are good at the present time, but when we understand the human mind better, and just how inventions are brought about, we shall realise that the machine efficiency instead of being great is really not on the first rung of the ladder.
So that with the present machinery, and improvements to follow, more work will be turned out, fewer people will be needed, but it will mean shorter working time and more time for leisure.
More money is spent on leisure than ever before, and this great game of billiards will be in the front row when it comes to getting real recreation as part of our daily life.
It will mean speed up your leisure, and all games will benefit—but billiards in particular.
Man is not made to work all the time, it is not good for him; but his leisure must be a change, both of thought and action. Billiards offers this change of thought and action, and it is for us who are interested in this great game of ours to see that men and women can be shown just what they can get from billiards, so that they can get the most out of the game under the best conditions.
Men who are tired do not give of their best, whether they work by hand or head. The thinkers should think when they are fresh, hand workers ditto, then output will increase; this will mean more time for recreation and leisure.
We shall have to study the game more, find out best what to do, so
that we can help players to get the most from their billiards. When I used to play I was working seven or eight hours mentally per day, and going out playing exhibition games at night.
Going away at six in the evening and returning at eight next morning, I often felt I had been away a week, returning as fresh as ever, all because I forgot my day's work and concentrated on my game of billiards, I was out to render service, and I got service rendered to me in return.
WILLIE HOLT.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
With reference to your editorial in the BILLIARD PLAYER. We have very carefully perused this, and it would appear to be very good reading.
We hope billiards will be a national necessity, although another writer, a few days ago, stated that beer and darts were replacing billiards.
However, we hope you are right.
E. J. RILEY, LTD.
Accrington, England.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
Thanks for your editorial in the BILLIARD PLAYER, which is very interesting.
Mankind has had his working day speeded up, and he also had his leisure speeded up. Is he, however, using his leisure to keep him fit for his speeded-up working day?
Willie Holt had a saying," You can't play billiards and think of other things. Your inborn desire to win compels you to concentrate."
Isn't this the leisure you want, when one is able to forget what has worried one during the day and what is coming to-morrow?
Billiards is a recreation that takes a man (or woman) out of himself.
Appeals showing the recreation value of the game must be made. For women," Play billiards and keep slim "; and for men," You pocket those worries the first shot."
H. NUTTALL.
Radcliffe-on-Trent.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
In these days of rationalisation nothing is necessary. If billiards did not exist we should still be carrying on.
Only the old-fashioned mind sticks to things that are merely beautiful, restful, or entertaining. We must grasp facts, and when we sit in judgment upon billiards in the national sense, we are compelled to take the view of the economist, to whom the pruning of the tree is more important than the fruit.
From the humanitarian aspect billiards has something to recommend it. In a charitable moment we can afford to give the game a glance, but it has no place in the economy of mankind: neither has any other game or sport.
"ECONOMIST"