EDITORIAL

I SHOULD be ungrateful indeed were I to commence my notes for the present week without returning my sincere and hearty thanks for all the kindly encouragement I have received in my attempt to produce a paper worthy of the great game with which it deals.

My brethren of the Press have vied one with the other in giving my venture a good "send-off," by writing kind and complimentary notices of the first number of THE WORLD OF BILLIARDS, and I am deeply sensible of what they have done for me. I wish I could reply individually to each of my known and unknown correspondents, who have written me pleasant and congratulatory letters but their number absolutely precludes my doing so, and I must ask them to accept an acknowledgment here, and an assurance that I am very grateful indeed for the kindly feeling that one and all have shown.

A FEW of my correspondents have expressed the fear that we shall be unable to maintain the standard that they are good enough to say we have reached in the opening number. It will, of course, be impossible to present a Portrait like that of the champion, except at fairly long intervals, but in other respects I trust no falling-off will be noticeable. I have various schemes in view, which I hope to develop from time to time; but an ounce of performance is worth a pound of promise, and it is needless to write more upon this subject at present. The policy of this paper will be absolutely free and independent. It will not be run in the interest of any particular player, but all may rest assured that they will be given "a clear course and no favour." I confidently hope for a fair share of public support, and I think I can undertake that all connected with THE WORLD OF BILLIARDS will do their best to deserve it.

A QUESTION has been put to me in my capacity of Hon. Secretary of the Billiard Association, which affects so many thousands of players, that I am inclined to give the matter whatever publicity may be afforded by dealing with it in these columns. There are, as is tolerably well known, a very large number of Conservative and Liberal Clubs in this country, the great majority of the members of which are drawn from the ranks of the working classes. Games tournaments are a very favourite amusement during the winter months, the picked representatives of one club battling against those of another at billiards, whist, cribbage, chess and draughts.

Now, as may easily be imagined, some of these excellent clubs number amongst their members men who are, or have been, billiard markers, and the question is constantly arising as to whether these are eligible to take part in the billiard tournaments. In the proposed rules which lie before me for the government of the billiard tournaments of the London Metropolitan Group of the Association of Conservative Clubs, part of No. 10 runs thus:— "All competitors must be bone fide amateur billiard players."

OF course, if this rule is finally adopted and rigidly carried out, the entry of a man who is, or has been, a marker cannot possibly be accepted. The rule of the Billiard Association is perfectly clear upon the point:— "Any person who, wholly or in greater part, earns or has earned his living by playing or scoring games played upon a billiard table is, for the purposes of the Association, deemed a Professional." Thus it is a case of "once a marker, always a professional," unless, indeed, the marker in question were reinstated as an amateur by the Billiard Association, which would not be at all likely to happen unless his case presented some altogether exceptional features.

IT cannot be too widely known, however, that the Committee of the Billiard Association take no cognisance of what may happen in clubs or private houses; indeed, a little reflection will show that they would be going far beyond their province if they attempted to do so. Let us suppose a case. Peall and Stevenson have been engaged to give an entertainment at a country house. Their game finishes early, the night is young, and the host gives a prize for a short handicap, in which he, some of his friends, and the two players take part. The amateurs have certainly contended against professionals for a prize, but surely no one would maintain that they were not at perfect liberty to do so under such conditions.

THE same thing would hold good in a club, and I think the Committee of Management of the A.C.C. games would do well to carefully consider their rule with regard to bond fide amateurs before finally passing it. Should they eventually decide to allow markers, past or present, to take part in their tournaments, the other members may rest assured that they can play against them in a club or private house without endangering their amateur status in the smallest degree.

IN the course of an interview with John Roberts, which appears in another column, the ex-champion is reported to have pointed out certain weak points existing in the present rules of billiards. I write "reported" advisedly, because it is unsafe to place too much reliance upon the productions of an interviewer, the most successful of whom appear to be possessed of remarkable powers of imagination. Accepting, however, the remarks attributed to Roberts as being correct in the main, I should like to point out that, whilst no absolutely flawless code of rules for any game of sport was ever yet drawn up, the Billiard Association has succeeded in carrying out the main objects in view—that there should only be one game at billiards, and that no fair stroke should be barred. The latter point appears to me to be of very great importance, because directly any fair stroke is barred, a game becomes a bastard one. Now "barring" has crept into the last match between Roberts and Weiss, but space is limited, and I shall return to the subject again next week, when it is possible that full accounts of the game will have reached this country.