The Game of Billiards

THE GAME OF BILLIARDS has some general claims upon the attention and patronage of the public, which it becomes the proprietor of this Treatise humbly to advocate and explain. It affords a recreation, which, with the exception of Chess, is the only one usually (would that it were invariably so), played FOR ITS OWN SAKE, and not for the pecuniary gains it may afford. It is the triumph of skill ; and the player should never seek any other reward for his victory. It thus becomes a recreation of the mind, in its purest sense ; relieving those whom the fatigue and anxieties of a life of business may have harassed or exhausted, by the introduction of a new train of ideas, of a gently exciting, but highly pleasurable nature.