Is a great attraction in some places. We knew a whole town upset by the
fact that the landlord of the "Swan" had fitted up a billiard-room. I
and Wiggins and Foley and Jobson spent at one time, I regret to say, a
good deal of time there. I am warning the reader against the follies of
my youth; but Foley failed, and Jobson and Wiggins, after having had
their debts paid three or four times by their friends, I believe are now
following that eminently healthy occupation called gold-digging,
somewhere in Australia. Then I think of that little town in South Wales,
and of the "Angel," under whose too hospitable roof we used to meet. One
of us was an M.P's son; he is now, I believe, dragging down a father's
grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Another of us bore a name dear to
every Englishman; he, I believe, is pensioned off by his family, and
lives as he can on the handsome allowance of a guinea a-week. But these
London billiard-rooms are fifty times more pernicious. There are some
five or six hundred connected with public-houses. There are in all our
large thoroughfares separate rooms licensed for this game, but at these
drinking often goes on. And thus the two excitements acting on the man,
he is impelled downwards with an increasing power. I have seen in these
rooms officers and secretaries of public companies in a night losing, I
am sure, a quarter's salary; I have seen young fellows completely ruined.
There was not, when I first knew him, a more promising, gentlemanly young
fellow than Smethwicke, and now, they tell me, he is in Marylebone
Workhouse.
We are told that men are grown-up children. This saying forcibly
occurred to me the last time I was in a billiard-room. After I had
recovered from the feeling of suffocation which an atmosphere infected by
gas and smoke had produced, I observed a number of men with long sticks
trying to knock a number of various-coloured balls into any of the six
pockets of the billiard-table. At each unsuccessful attempt a chorus of
observations were made by the players, not remarkable for their novelty,
for the vocabulary of the billiard-room is very limited, such as "Not
within a mile"--"I didn't play for you, Bob"--"It smelt the hole," &c.
&c. At each successful attempt the chorus was still more animated, but
not more original, as "Good stroke,"--"Bad flewke"--"On the red," &c. &c.
The game that was being played was called "pool." A number of people put
each 2_s._ or 3_s._, as they may choose to arrange it, and they have each
a ball of a different colour--red, blue, pink, yellow, white, brown,
black. Each player has what is called three lives, and each time he is
put in by a player--for they play in turn--he pays sixpence or a
shilling, according to arrangement, and loses a life, whilst the
successful player is allowed to play again upon the ball which happens to
be nearest. The money in the pool is ultimately divided between the two
players who have kept their three lives the longest. It will be seen
that, if everything is straightforward, the best player has the best
chance of dividing the pool or taking the lives. But, unhappily, this
game, so child-like in appearance, is not always innocent. It may happen
two players, gifted by nature with conveniently elastic consciences, and
a very confused notion of right and wrong, may arrange when they play
upon each other to purposely avoid putting the ball in. Of course, each
time this omission is made it is equal to the owner of the ball having an
extra life, and of course makes the division of the pool almost a
certainty. Perhaps at the end of the evening the two gentlemen, "who
merely play for their amusement," may be seen under a lamppost dividing
the spoil. The other games are pyramids and billiards, which it is
unnecessary to describe. I will simply remark that the best player
should win the game; but this is not always the case. Alas! for human
nature! Sharps lose to win; muffs win to lose (the term "muff" is
applied to an indifferent player). After this not very flattering
description the reader would doubtless like to know who frequent these
places. A very large majority are gentlemen--men who are perfectly
incapable of doing anything but what is strictly honest; the minority are
billiard sharks. The gentlemen play because it is a source of
excitement; the sharks, because it is a source of profit. There are also
some who play only for amusement with gentlemen like themselves, and
never risk beyond a shilling or so; and others, mere lookers-on, who,
fatigued by their daily labours, prefer a _dolce far niente_ to the
trouble of theatres, &c., and who read the paper, drink their brandy and
water, and smoke their cigar, without either playing or making a bet.
It is not easier to distinguish a gentleman in a billiard-room than
elsewhere, but without wishing to be personal, it is desirable the
stranger should keep at a distance those individuals who are so very
familiar and friendly with every one, and who keep a piece of chalk in
their waistcoat pocket. These people cannot be insulted; they carefully
avoid squabbles, which may bring about disagreeable insinuations; they
prefer pursuing the even tenor of their way, "picking up" as many people
as they can. See yonder old man who totters across the room; his trade
is swindling, his goods are lies, his recreation is obscenity and
blasphemy; his palsied hand can scarcely grasp a cue, and yet there are
few who can excel him; by concealing his game carefully he has won, and
can win hundreds, from his victims, who, thinking nothing of his skill,
are astonished, as he pretends to be himself, at his _luck_. The young
wife tossing restlessly in her bed, and wondering what can keep her lord
so long at _business_, little knows, when he returns home flushed and
excited, that he has been fleeced of money he can ill afford to lose;
whilst the sharer of the domestic joys of the billiard shark basks in the
sunshine of his momentary good humour, as he displays with a sardonic
smile the gold which perhaps never belonged to the dupe who lost it. But
the night is closing on us; we have seen enough for once. Come away.