How is it that people play better billiards at night than by day. Some people say that they do not, but the general opinion is that the lighting up adds ten in a hundred to a man's game, and the reasons adduced as proof of this assertion are many and varied. One man says he can see better by night than by day, others that they cannot divert themselves of business thoughts and worries until night, and so cannot give an undivided attention to the game. Cynical folk aver that it is because by the time the evening comes round the average man has fortified his nervous system and this gives him confidence. On the other hand, it is said (I don't know whether this is correct or not) that in the majority of professional matches the biggest breaks have been made in daytime, but this may be accounted for by the fact that in a professional match, lasting for several days, a man is naturally fresher when he first starts the day's play than when he is ending up.
The table runs better at night is another explanation, this is due to the heat engendered by the lights which affect the cushions. Some people are so strangely constituted that they would not play during the daytime, they would think they were committing almost a crime in doing so. In the foggy days of November there is more playing in the daytime than during any other period, but this is not a fair comparison, as the rooms are, of course lit up. There are rooms in provincial towns where play is altogether unknown during the daytime, and where a marker is unnecessary during this period, and this state of affairs has induced proprietors to employ markers for the evenings only.
This, of course, renders it necessary for the marker to obtain some other employment in the day in order to make both ends meet, and some stories that would be humorous, were they not so pathetic, are told of the means resorted to to obtain this end. Some of these night markers are lads who reside with their parents, and these, of course, are not reduced to the same straits as those of more mature years. You may see advertisments for such lads in country papers: "Wanted, a youth residing at home to act as marker during the evening. Wages, 2s. a night." Twelve shillings a week is very useful as pocket money to a lad who has a comfortable home, but what would 12s. a week, for the gratuities in these towns are so insignificant that they are not worth considering, be to a man with a family to support. This does not, of course, enter into the employers calculations.