BILLIARDISTIC BOYS.
There is no amusement I can think of out of which innocent enjoyment
cannot be extracted. Personally, I can see no harm in young people
dancing or playing billiards or cards—as long as they are carried on in
the homes of these young people. As soon as our youth desire to pursue
these pleasures away from the watchful eye of their parents, so soon do
they become dangerous. The billiard halls of this city are not supported
by men, but by lads. Go to any of them, either day or night, and ten to
one you will find the majority of the players are youths not yet come
of age. A remarkably large proportion you will find to be mere boys,
and the skill with which they play seems to argue that they did not
start playing yesterday nor the day before. Just watch the swagger they
assume. The blase airs of these young cynics is an article of first-class
quality. After you have admired that, I call your attention to the cut
of the garments of these young gentlemen—very neat isn’t it—and two
or three of them sport watches, gold or silver. Then consider that it
costs these cute-looking chaps 30 cents an hour for every hour that they
occupy that table and that some of them are here every night, and you
will wonder where the wherewithal comes from. Some of them work. Some of
them don’t. In any case they must have indulgent parents, or—something.
There is a group of Upper Canada College boys round that table. No doubt
their wealthy and aristocratic progenitors make liberal allowances to
their darling boys. They play good enough to make a good showing in a
tournament. If they are as proficient regarding the angles at the base
and on the other side of the base of an isosceles triangle as they are
with the angles in and about this table they must be fine mathematicians.
There is another group playing pool. Don’t look at them too hard, because
they are chipping in ten cents on the game. One little boy who has not
been playing very long, and who I saw scoop in a “pot” shortly after I
came up stairs, has lost the joyous look that then mantled his features.
Just study that face. Look at the dreadfully anxious expression with
which he follows the movements of the ball, and as it creeps slowly
towards a pocket I believe the intensity of that boy’s will makes the
inert ivory move an inch further on, and it drops in the pocket. He
flushes up to the roots of his hair. If he gets the next ball he will
take in the “pot” again. But he is very nervous, and makes a poor shot,
and the next in hand pockets the ball. The little chap looks wistfully
at the bigger boy who took in the forty cents, and goes up and whispers
something to him. “I can’t do it Charley. You’d only lose again. You’ve
got no show with us, and you’d better get out of it while you can.”
Charley goes and sits down, feeling very bitterly I’ve no doubt. There is
the spirit of gaming in its essential characteristic—after all of your
own money is gone, borrow from anybody and everybody, and have another
hazard.
I went up to another prominent hall in the daytime, and found it filled
with youths, but they did not seem such a respectable-looking lot as
those I saw at night at the first place. They were a hoodlum lot, very
noisy, and poor players. I was much surprised. It seemed astonishing
that during the working hours there could be such a number of young men
unemployed and yet playing a game which it requires funds to engage
in. There is something very ominous about this and no one could think
otherwise than that times must be very flush indeed to permit of it.
A visit to a hall which is attached to a saloon showed me that this class
of place is patronized mainly by men, nor was there half as much noise as
in the room last mentioned. I am told that in some of these places they
merely play for the drinks, and much drunkenness is the result.
Pool is at present the most popular form of billiards among the masses.
It lends itself more readily to gambling than carom billiards, and any
person who takes observation will come to the conclusion that more of the
spirit of gaming is disseminated among our young men by this game than
by any other half-a-dozen things. It would seem to be quite as necessary
that boys should be prevented playing at all in public billiard halls, as
it is that they should be prevented buying liquor at a bar.