How Billiards was Invented.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 18, 21 July 1894, Page 4

How Billiards was Invented.

Games have their history as well as heroes, and thig is how th^ir history i« sometimes written. The authority should of course be jriven : it is the Paris Fisrar« : — " The l ng*lish are very fond ol tiie curious game of billiards, and a letter has been discovered in the British Museum which gives the origin of the national sport. It was invented by a London pawnbroker, whose name was William Kew Kew uot only lent money, but he sold cloth, and for the latter purpose hnd a yard meaaue with which he used to compute the. amounts. One day, to distract himself, he took the three round balls which are the emblems of his trade — they may still be seen io front of certain shops in London and, placing them on the counter, began to hit them about with the yard mpasure. He found it made a prntty (tame. He got a kind of skill in making one ball glance off tbe other, and his friends who saw him thus employed called the game Bill'a Yard. This was soon shortened into billiard But the yard was the instrument with which the balls were knocked about, and the difficulty arose what to call it They called it after the name of the pawnbroker — Kew."