Major Egbert Snuker

Daily News (London), Saturday 27 June 1925

TO-DAY’S ANNIVERSARY,
MAJOR EGBERT SNUKER.

It was on this day in 1066—or was that the Fire of London? Anyway, it was on this day a good while ago and long before your time, so don’t argue, that Sieur Rohan de Snuque, Mareschal of Champaigne and a sous-lieutenant in William’s conquering army, landed on Pevensey Level to take possession of his new-won lands in the Rape of Lewes.

A small enough event in itself, but great hoax from little acorns grow; and had he slipped and been drowned, or had the boat gone down, or had it been foggy in the Channel, or had he decided not to come, or had his father remained single— However, we shall come to that presently. Step by step, as the burglar went up the treadmill.

Except for a casual mention in 1634, when Ensign Roger Snuque was fined two groats for riding his palfrey without a rear lamp and bell, we find no mention of the family until 1833, when Major Egbert Snuker, a direct descendant of Rohan, was retired from the 87th Punjabis (the famous “Pukka Chutnees”) and went to live at Cheltenham.

A bit of a dog was Egbert, a three-bottle man, who looked upon the beer when it was brown, the whisky when it was yellow, the Chartreuse when it was green, and so on, right through the wine list.

His favourite hobby was billiards, of which game he had been an expert exponent in his youth. But long service under a tropic sky, with much lifting of the elbow, had caused his eye to lose its cunning, so that the lads of the village had no difficulty in nutting it across him nightly, and leaving him to pay for the table.

This did not suit the Major, and many a long hour he stayed in the billiards room practising his shots. But alas! his sight was going back on him, and where there should have been but one red ball he frequently saw two; an optical illusion not uncommon among Anglo-Indians who look upon the beer when it is brown, etc., etc. (For further particulars, see above).

“There are two red balls,” he hiccupped. “I can see ’em. But which is one that isn’t there?” With many a “Hic.!” (for he was an excellent Latin scholar) the Major plunked away, but all to no purpose.

“I can see two balls as plain as pikestaff,” he mused. “But there’s only one really. So if I put another one on table hie, there will be two be two all right hic, and then I can’t miss it can’t miss it.
But when he had put another red ball on the table, he saw four. And missed the lot. So ha said some more Latin, and put four more red balls on the cloth, which made eight. And then there were sixteen.

And now the gallant Major bad little difficulty in potting one or other of the reds, except when he used the wrong end of his cue or took the jigger to it.

Thus perished this sturdy old warrior. (There seems to be a bit missing here, but I can’t stop now.) Thus perished this sturdy old warrior; but his name, or something like it, remains enshrined for ever in the game of Snooker; a game which shall be played wherever the white man sets hie foot to take up the black man’s burden when the black man isn’t looking, wherever the meteor flag of England shall yet heroic burn.