CAN SNOOKER POOL BECOME POPULAR?
Edinburgh Evening News, Saturday 28 September 1912
Can the cloud which has descended upon billiards locally be lifted (asks a correspondent)? Have saloon proprietors utilised all the games associated with the green cloth and found that they are exhausted as a pastime? On entering most billiard-rooms at night the only game played appears to be pure billiards, such games as snooker and the other forms of pool being rarely seen. Unfortunately, games out with billiards are coupled with a high tariff, and many cueists who would venture at snooker, &c., are held up by the charges. The enterprise of one small saloon in Edinburgh might beneficially be followed by most proprietors. In this saloon the price of billiards and its kindred games has been fixed at 1s per hour, each of the six tables has been provided with a set of snooker balls, and it is now an everyday occurrence to see all the tables going with snooker. The continued potting of balls has naturally a beneficial effect on billiards, and players, whose interest in the game has been slowly dwindling on account of having reached that stage where a real advance is only made by consistent and hard practice, have taken to snooker pool. Many there are who seldom play anything but snooker, and so competent have some become that breaks of between 30 and 50 are quite common. Picture houses and theatres are being blamed for the falling off in billiards, snooker. &c., but with every game fixed in price to 1s per hour and advertised a little more, interest in this intricate pastime would undoubtedly arise.