Billiards in the home circle—medically considered.
A history and description of Billiards. Samuel May, Billiard Table manufacturer. 1867
By Dr. Marcy, of New York
Nothing contributes more to the physical, moral, and intellectual development and heathfulness of a community than suitable recreation. Man is made up of a great variety of organs and faculties, all destined to perform certain functions, and a proper exercise and development of them is essential to the highest degree of health and usefulness. This vital fact is not duly appreciated by the American people. In all parts of our country the chief end of life appears to consist in the acquisition of riches; and all the faculties of the mind, yea, even health itself, are rendered subservient to this object. In our large cities, especially, violations of laws of health are almost universal. The amount of recreation and amusement indulged in by our professional, literary, and business men is entirely inadequate to secure that degree of physical and mental vigor which ptoperly belongs to them. Scarcely a man of them can examine carefully the moral tabernacle in which his soul dwells, without finding some derangement, some source of pain, depression of spirits, or other annoyance.
We claim that a large portion of these evils are due to excessive devotion to business, and to a neglect of those mental and physical diversions which conduce so materially to health and happiness. On returning home from business, our citizens indulge in rich dinners, with vinous and other potations; after the meal is ended, a majority of them mope over their evening journals, ponder upon the prices of merchandise, stock, and the profits and losses of the day, and then retire to an on refreshing sleep, with a stomach full of rich viands and exciting stimulants, and a mind compressed with perplexing cares and thoughts of business. Another portion pass a large part of the night at crowded parties, balls, theatres, clubs, and late suppers, and call this recreation. But is the inhalation for hours in succession of a poisonous atmosphere, or an indulgence in game sappers, punches, wines, ices, and other abominations at two or three o’clock in the morning, and then going from heated apartments with open pores into a cold atmosphere—in sober reality, amusing or conductive to health or morals. Let the next morning’s headache, nausea, and mental and bodily lassitude, which even Seltzer water tails to remove, answer: Later, let the sallow skin, the dyspeptic stomach, the torpid liver, the shaky nerves, and the bluedevils, respond to the query. Later still, let apoplexy, paralysis, softening of the brain, or Bright’s disease, give the final answer.
What, then, can be suggested as suitable modes of recreation? How can we present that exercise and diversion to both mind and body which will result in recruiting them from the perplexing toils and cares of business? We answer, by directing the thoughts and the muscles into new and agreeable channels; by taking we mind from care, anxiety, and severe application, and diverting it by pleasurable exercise and excitement; by setting aside disagreeable and depressing emotions, add substituting in their place those which are cheerful and exhilarating; by giving to the dormant muscles of the limbs and of the whole body that gentle and healthful exercise which they so much require, but of which they are deprived in the ordinary avocations of city life.
One of the modes by which these desirable objects may be accomplished is to introduce into private houses a Billiard Table, and to present it to the entire family—men, women, and children—as a means of daily exercise and recreation. The most indolent and stupid will, by practice, soon acquire a fondness for the game; and the improvements in the salutary condition of those who habitually indulge in it, will commend it in the strongest manner to the heads of families.
We also advocate the game of billiards in families from a moral as well as galutary point of view. Young America is naturally “frisky” naturally enthusiastic, exuberant, and fond of excitement and fan. Confine him in the house without diversion and excitement, and he mopes, sulks, pines, and sooner or later, breaks from wholesome parental restraints, and instinctively seeks for amusements, excitements, and pleasures elsewhere — at the club, the play house, the restaurant, and too ojten the gambling-hell and brothel. These natural instincts for diversion may be directed in such a manner by parents as to be productive of positive physical, moral and intellectual benefit, by investing home with a few of the attractions which beckon them elsewhere. Give them comfortable billiard rooms and billiard tables, so that body and mind can be amused and invigorated, and the attractions and pleasures of home will be superior to those beyond its boundaries.
Billiards is a mathematical game, and affords scope and exercise, for those faculties which discipline and strengthen the mind. A steady hand, a clear head, quick perceptions, and a pleasant exercise of the calculating powers, are the requisite for an accomplished billiard player. The practical development of these qualities must naturally be productive of good results.
The game of billiards was invented in France. The name is derived from Bille, a balI.
Charles IX of France married Elizabeth of Austria in 1570, and the wedding was signalized by the serving up at the table of the first turkeys ever seen in France. A year after this event, and ft year before the death of this young queen, the game of billiards was invented by Henrique De Vigne, a French artist, in 1571. The new game became immediately popular at the French Court, and was soon known to the Germans, the Dutch, Italians, and the various nations of Europe. Burton, the author of the “Anatomy of Melancholy,” mentions billiards among the fifteen popular “winter recreations” in vogue in England at the end of that century. Of some other amusements he thus speaks: “Cards, dice, hawkes and hounds, are rooks upon which men loose themselves when they are improperly handled and beyond their fortunes,” Hunting and hawking he regards as “honest recreations, and fit for some great men, but not for every base or inferior person;” for “while they maintain their faulkoner, and dogs, and hunting nags, their wealth runs away with their hounds, and their fortunes fly away with the hawkes.”
In more recent times various improvements have been made in the construction of billiard tables. Tables made of slate were introduced into England in 1627. The skill of home manufacturers now leaves nothing further to be desired.
A few months ago we purchased of Messrs. Phelan & Collender a billiard table, and installed it in one of our large upper rooms, as a household fixture; and we can truly say, that it has contributed vastly to the health and pleasure of the entire family. Hundreds of times when we have looked upon the happy and excited faces of those engaged in the game, and when personally participating in the exhilarating recreation, we have been profoundly grateful to Messrs. Phelan & Collender for their praiseworthy efforts in endeavouring to nationalize and render popular this delightful game. If those who ameliorate the ills of life, and add to the sum of human happiness, are public benefactors, then the gentlemen, to whom we have just alluded are entitled to the appellation.