BILLIARDS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 121, 5 June 1863, Page 3

BILLIARDS.

[[From the Illustrated London News.'] Urox a rainy day, or for an hour or two after dinner, there is no indoor amusement that can vie with billiards, for to amusement it adds exercise, and a man may walk his two miles an hour round what has been termed the “ Board of Green Cloth.” There is another advantage, which is, that ladies may participate in the amusement, either by taking a mace or cue, or by looking on ; and a wellcontested match, which may include sides of two each, is a most interesting event, infinitely more so than watching a game of chess or a rubber of whist. With respect to the tables, there can be no doubt but that a vast improvement has been made within the last thirty years. Instead of an uneven surface and coarse stuff, we have the perfectly level slate bed, covered with the finest cloth ; while the old list cushions, which were as hard as iron, have givep way to the elasticity of vulcanised india-rubbCr. Among the numerous games usually played in England may be mentioned the Winning and Losing Carambole Game, Winning Hazard and Carambole Game, French Carambole Game, the Four-ball or American Game, Pyramid Pool and Pool. Though treating of billiards as an interesting indoor amusement for amateurs, we must not ignore the pleasure to bo derived from witnessing the feats of “ professionals.” At the commencement of this century there was a billiard-table keeper at Hamburg who used to back himself to force his ball from one table to another contiguous to it, and hole the ball in any specified pocket of the latter. But probably the achievements of Messrs. Kentfield and Roberts, and M. Berger, surpass anything that was ever previously recorded. For, be it remarked, the extraordinary feats of these great players can only be performed with balls, tables, &c., rendered all but perfection by the improvements suggested by modern science, and to which we have already referred. Hence the delight we experience in playing on such tables as are to be found in the rooms of crack players, such as Kentfield’s, at Brighton ; Roberts’s, in Leicester square ; and Berger’s, in the Palais Royal. For instance, one of the strokes performed by Kentfield is to play a canon all round the table with such dead strength that the second ball, having a sixpence balanced on it, the canon is made without knocking down the small coin. A stroke like this, requiring extreme accuracy and delicacy, can only be performed on a perfectly level table, and with balls that run perfectly true. The common game has been much played by Kentfield, but perhaps the game which he is most famous is the cramp one-pocket game. The extraordinary skill with which ho manoeurves

to lay the balls over his pocket after every stroke cannot be described ;it must be seen. Kentfleld states that he has played more than fifty thousand games, one pocket to five, with one gentleman alone. Wonderful as is Kentfield’s dexterity and knowledge of strength, the execution of Roberts is no less wonderful. It is a questio cexata whether Kentfleld, in his best days, was better than Heberts ; and this question we do not intend to discuss. The great merits of both are quite enough to occupy us. We believe that we are correct in stating that Heberts has made the largest break of the balls ever achieved—viz., three hundred and forty-four. He has also scored three hundred and twelve off one ball, the red, by winning hazards, only ; that is to say, he has pocketed the red ball in playing a game one hundred and four times consecutively, without an intervening failure. It is worth while to see him, if only when playing this stroke—the confidence with which ho strikes, and the rapidity with which he places himself for the succeeding stroke, starting off the moment the ball is struck, and before it is in the pocket, the action is more like the measured beats of machinery than that of fallible muscular exertion. We need hardly explain that we have been describing the “spot stroke,” in which Roberts is unrivalled. Wo trust that English players will not take umbrage if we say that there is yet a more surprising player than any wo have mentioned—a Frenchman, Mens. Berger. Berger was a professional player in Paris, but he has now retired. He is a portly man, and does not look at all as though he could play billiards. His game is, of course, tlie French canon game. At that game our finest players are mere children in his hands ; he constantly scores twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more canons at a break. His marvellous delicacy ot touch and accuracy of stroke beat all we have ever heard of, or witnessed at the billiard table. We will suppose he plays rather hard at the balls and canons; the balls go spinning all about the table without any apparent design, but lo ! as they slacken, you see they are approaching, and they lay themselves down close together in one corner like a pair of Java lovebirds ; and this not once, but time after time. Berger used to explahi how these strokes were made by placing the balls and stating the course they would run. His fancy strokes, though to our fancy not a bit more wonderful than his ordinary game, are more showy and striking, and used to excite great interest. We have hoard of screwing a ball round a hat, and we have certainly see the ball made to swerve a little; but Berger makes his ball describe a honafide circle round a basket bigger than a hat, and makes a canon at the same time. Amongst other strokes he screws back the whole length of the table, and canons when his own ball is so close to the one he screws back on, that he can only strike it at the top. Again he makes his ball, after striking the red, jump on to the cushion, run on it along the length of the table, and then descend and complete the canon olf two cushions. He also canons and makes his ball at the same time describe a figure eight ; and draws three curved lines on the cloth, and makes what he calls a serpentine canon—that is to say, makes his ball, in travelling from one object ball to the other, describe curves over the very lines he has drawn.

We merely give these instances of skill, as they are interesting to the amateur billiard-players, but we advise our readers to leave the performance of them to professionals. In striving to execute them, the amateur is very likely to give the cloth an ugly cut, and even if he succeeds in doing them occasionally, he will find that certain soc ial disadvantages attach to being a very clever gentle-man-player. To enjoy billiards as an indoor amusement, it is quite sufficient to be able to make a common hazard or canon with tolerable certainty and to play two or three “ fifties ” up iu the course of an hour.