Sketcher. Billiards.

“Let it alone; let’s to billiards; come Charmian.”—Anthony and Cleopatra.

Shakespeare, in thus suggesting that the magnificent Egyptian was familiar with the game of games, most certainly took full advantage of the license to which poets are popularly supposed to be entitled. Billiards had not been invented in her day, nor was the game thought of for many a long day thereafter. It is indeed one of the more modern of all recreations, having in all probability no greater antiquity than dates back to the sixteenth century.

Somewhere about the time that bluff King Hal was making matters warm for his wives, and generally playing sad havoc with the moralities, billiards was invented. But to whom the honor of the creation of the noble game belongs is veiled in doubt. Some authorities contend for its French origin, others for its English nativity. The best argued contention favors the belief that the game was invented by some stolid Dutchman, and that it was rapidly adopted by all Europe. Johnson, naturally enough, stoutly contends for its English birth; Todd will have it that it was first evolved from a Gallic brain. Be this as it may be, the first description of the game, now extant, is to be found in Cotton’s “Complete Gamester,” 1674, in which the table upon which it was played is said to have been longer than it is broad, and railed around—the rail or ledge being “stoft with fine flox or cotton.” The table was level and covered with green cloth, “the more free from knots the better.” The bed was of oak, and maces, or “masts” as they were called, took the place of our modern cues.

But long before the publication of Cotton’s work, billiards had become a standard game in Europe. There is in existence an old document which runs as follows:—”To Henry Waller, our joyner, for one Bylliarde boarde cont. Twelve foot long and four foot broade, the frame being walnuttre, well wrought, and caured with eight great skewers and eighteen small skewers.” This magnificent piece of furniture was made for His Most Christian Majesty, King James 1st, and in all probability Henry Waller was never paid for its construction. In the Memoires complete et authentique du duc de St. Simon. in the reign of Louis XIV. we read that the grand monarch was much attached to the game of billiards; constantly playing with M. Legrand, M. de Vendome, le Marechal de Villeroy or the Duc de Grammont. At this time one Chamillart was the crack billiardist, and he owed to his skill, the King’s favor and his advancement in the State. A satirist of the day thus writes M. Chamillard’s epitaph:—

Ci-git le fameux Chamillard,

De son roi le protonotaire;

Qui fut un heros au Billard, Et un zero au ministers.

The which we might roughly translate:—

Here lies the famous Camillard,

The King’s prothonotary;

The game of billiards he played well,

With his office played Old Harry.

The great peculiarity of the game as then played was in the addition of a port (arch) and king, made of ivory, and placed on the table, one in the centre, and what would now be called the American baulk line at each end of the table. The game was played with two balls, winning hazards only were played for (if a player holed his own ball he lost one, hence the term winning and losing hazards) and certain scores appertained to passing the port and hitting the king.

In a fifth edition of Cotton (1734) French billiards is added, “so called from their manner of playing the game, which is only with maces and balls, port and king being now wholly laid aside.” Cues might also be used, but winning hazards were still the only game; and only good players were allowed to use the cue for fear of “wounding” the cloth. The cue did not come into general use until late in the eighteenth century,

Meanwhile, however, while much alteration had been made in the game itself, up to a comparatively recent period, the table remained a very primitive affair. List was substituted for flock in stuffing the cushions, and marble beds were sometimes employed instead of oak. It was not, however, until 1827 that slate beds were used, and India rubber cushions were first introduced ten years afterwards.

A Frenchman named Mignaud invented the cue-tip of leather, and Carr, a marker of billiards, at Bath in 1809, was the first to use chalk. Carr’s employer discovered the “side” stroke, and between the two they made a rare thing by selling their chalk at half-a-crown a box, pretending that it possessed a peculiar virtue in imparting “side.”       

Carr was the best player of his day; and his score of 22 consecutive spot hazards created great excitement in 1825, when he was backed against all comers for one hundred guineas aside. Kentfield followed as champion, and was greatly superior to Carr. But he had to give way in 1819 to John Roberts, who was out here, by the way. Roberts remained champion up to 1870. His greatest break record was 346, including no less than 104 consecutive spot hazards. However, in 1870 William Cook wrested the sceptre from the doughty old Brighton player. Cook may be esteemed the most wonderful player we have seen. His break of 752 points, including 220 hazards, place him as the best all-round billiard player—but he has been hard pushed by John Roberts, junior, and Joseph Bennet, each of whom has beaten him in various matches.

At the present day the game of billiards may bo said to be not merely a luxury but a necessity of civilised life. When we come to consider that this admirable game plays such an important part in the social developments of modern life, we may readily understand what an important position it takes in its contribution to the manufactures of the day. After watchmaking, it is probable that the manufacture of billiard tables comes next in importance among those articles which in these times, are regarded as essentials of cultivated existence. And a very little reflection will show us that there is nothing very wonderful in the firm hold which the game has taken upon the public taste of all nations. It is essentially a social game, and most certainly does not present those provocations to hatred and malice and base passions generally by which unhappily most games at cards or hazard are usually attended. Billiards is essentially wholesome in its influence. Many a love match has been fostered over a game of billiards played in some cosy country mansion between a pretty girl and an admirer. Many the friendship has been struck over a game of pyramids, or a mild contest in general pool. You cannot degrade billiards to the level of games of chance, and the man who it swindled in a billiard-room cannot in candour blame the game itself for any special facility it presents for dishonesty. It is essentially a manly, honest, and intellectual game, and hence its wide spread popularity among all classes.   

At this moment as I write, I wonder how many games are in full course! All over Europe, in France and Germany, Holland and Belgium, in Russia, in Italy, in Spain, in England, in Ireland, in Scotland, all over Asia, Africa and America; all over Australasia—wherever the European hath set his foot and sojourns for a while, the click of billiard balls now echo. In elegant café, in lager beer saloons and wine halls, in Emperors’ palaces and nobles’ mansions, in country house and seaside hotel, the game which some honest fellow who lived some two or three hundred years ago, gave to the world, is being played. Consider the depth and breadth and incalculable height of human enjoyment which arose out of that happy invention. Rejoice upon the kindly influences, the laughter, the gratified sense of skill, the pleasant mental exercise which have been and are still being experienced by millions, which this fortunate discovery of the game of billiards has brought about! And having done this, come along with me and I will still further impress you with the conviction— hitherto undeveloped in your mind—of the important part the game of billiards plays as a factor in the groat sum of human enjoyment. Here we are in the great establishment of Messrs. Alcock and Co.

Reading Cotton’s description of the billiard board of his day, with its oaken bed, “the more free from knots the better,” and its cushions “stuffed with flox,” the contrast which is exhibited by the most superficial inspection of this remarkable factory, is almost ludicrous. It is certainly as marked in its impression, as that which might be excited by the printing press used by brave old Caxton, beside a magnificent Hoe machine; or between the old shuttles of the elder Peel’s day and the delicate spinning jennies of our time. For here in this establishment devoted to the cause of humanity’s recreation, is exhibited the outcome of human thought, and experiment and experience, prompted by that enthusiasm with which, from its inception, the noble game of billiards has inspired all men.

We have many matters to offer to the consideration of visitors as exemplifying the singular vitality and progressiveness of Victorian energies and enterprise. I question whether any is more likely to excite surprise, and induce correspondent appreciative reflection than is presented by Messrs. Alcock’s Billiard Factory. For look you—one may guage the measure of a people’s resources with an easier rapidity by observing their expenditure upon domestic or social pleasures, than by the more laborious process of noting their modes of making money. With a community like ours, in which the liesured classes of the old world are hardly known, and in which, at any rate, one must sing for his supper, or go without it, observation of the expenditure of society upon its modes of recreation affords a very fair index to its resources of revenue. And so, considered philosophically, an inspection of Alcock’s factory presents a gratifying evidence of the easy circumstances of a community which can afford to support the manufacture of an agent wholly devoted to the purpose of amusement.

A big affair it is. A Frenchman once told me that he thought this factory the most magnificent outcome of our phenomenal progress. To be sure he was an enthusiast as a billiardist, but there was no little truth in his remark. It is a surprising factory—for the reasons we have hinted at, no less than the circumstance that whether here or in Europe, there are few, if any, of the kind to compare with it.

I have often watched the conveyance into the yards of this place of huge blocks of cedar and blackwood, and marvelled in my ignorance of mechanics how and by what methods they were converted into those elegant billiard tables which all over Australasia, and indeed in many remote countries, one beholds as made by this firm. But this wonder is soon set at rest, when upon entering, you note how these massive logs are cut and shaped under the action of numberless saws, the teeth of which, even as a thankless son, are sharper than a serpent’s. Here again is room for fancy. The growth of a sapling, its development into the proportions of a lordly tree, its fall under the strokes of the axeman, and then its seasoning, to be presently converted into elegant shapes and curves and polished surfaces, in the cause of human enjoyment. Truly Hamlet’s reflection upon the possibilities of a lump of clay has a wider significance than any that relates to Cesar’s fate.

There is an instrument in this place which is called the veneer saw. In these days we are prepared for big matters—big guns, big battles, big earthquakes, and bo on. It is the ago of the Nasmyth hammer, and Krupp’s monster cannon. And worthy of these giants is this saw, which is twelve feet across and weighs three tons, and revolves 9000 times a minute. Yet, like the leviathan hammer to which I but now referred, its action can be 80 regulated that while it may be made to rip through the very heart of a monster log, it can as readily be called upon to skin a shaving from its surface as delicate as a damsel’s curls. These shavings are the “veneers,” and Messrs. Alcock and Co. supply all needed by the furniture trades of the colony.

In the manufacture of these tables and accessories, the firm call’ upon Australia for their timber, Wales for the slates which compose the bed, India for the rubber which forms the cushions, and Africa for the ivory of which the billiard balls are composed. Here again is food for fancy. Looking at a huge elephant tusk, which haply years ago had sent many a denizen of the jungle to the right about, and watching the operations under which it is ultimately changed into smooth round billiard balls, the mind is necessarily charged with an impression of the mutability of all things. And here one is led to inquire—What becomes of all the billiard balls? just as the question, “what becomes of all the watches?” puzzles, and confounds the understanding.

‘Tis a pretty sight this ivory turning. To be sure every operation in the factory is a pretty sight. Indeed, it is essentially artistic this making of billiard tables, and so far as I can learn, this element of the business has been specially studied by the proprietors. I am sure that the cabinet register cue-stand, and the billiard table which were recently exhibited at the Calcutta Exhibition are high art in every detail. Then the processes of carving, turning, polishing, &c., are all artistic. One of the most interesting sights is presented by the operation of smoothing the slates.

Covetousness is a vice which rarely troubles mo. But I own that this dainty “billiard-dining” table makes me yearn for its possession. A most elegant matter this. By an ingenious contrivance its height is regulated for playing billiards, or a knife and fork; in the latter case it is covered, and presents the features of an elegant dining table. Positively, in some matters we approach the old Romans in the ingenuity with which we contrive matters for our comfort and recreation.

A great many of imported tables pass to Alcock and Co. for alteration and improvement, especially in respect of their cushions. The rubber used by the Austrian makers, for example, is not suited to this climate, and so in many cases the firm is called upon to substitute other and superior cushions. But so far as I can learn, the firm is beating out all competition. So true it is that, in the long run merit will win the race, even though handicapped by prejudice and its own juvenility.

A great number of men is employed by this firm. I should like to have a cheque for a year’s wages. Thenceforward no trouble should corrugate my brow. My own fig-tree should shade me, my own roof-tree shelter me. And be sure of this that so soon, my friend, had you and I dined comfortably, my servant should whip off the leaves from the table, turn a screw and arrange its height, and we should there and then set to work to pit our skill—each to each—at a game of billiards.

Waikato Times, 14 November 1885