Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/662

 642 BILLIARDS light wood with a boxwood head, square- fronted, and bevelled so as to slide along the cloth, is still used to some extent by ladies and children in playing billiards, and it was the first instrument employed in the game. A rough form of cue was first used about the beginning of this century, and the improved leather-tipped cue invented by M. Mingaud, a Parisian billiard player, some years later. Only after the introduction of this instrument did any really great skill in playing become pos- sible. In playing, the cue should be loosely held near the butt by the right hand, the por- tion near the tip resting on a "bridge" formed, as represented in the cut, by the left hand, Position of the Left Hand. which should in turn rest firmly and steadily upon the table, about six inches from the ball which is to be struck with the cue. The stroke of the cue should be given by the force of the wrist and forearm only, and should be quick and firm, not heavy even in the strongest shots. Skill and quickness are required rather than muscular strength. To strike with his own ball, in a single play, and either directly or by rebounding from the cushions, more than one of the other balls on the table that is, in technical phrase, "to make a carom" may be said, in brief, to be the main object of each player in the game of billiards ; for those forms of the game in which a principal aim is to drive the balls into the pockets are rapidly passing out of use. In the game of billiards most common in America, four balls are used one red, one pink, one entirely white, and the fourth white with a black point, from which it is commonly called the sgot ball, or simply "the spot." At the beginning of the game the red balls are placed upon the spots marked A and B in the engravings. One play- er takes the white, the other the spot ball, and the question of the first play or "lead" is decided as follows : The players, placing their balls as they choose at the end of the table known as the head it being only necessary that both shall be inside an imaginary line (the string) drawn across the table at the point A -proceed to play against the cushion at the other end ; he who succeeds in making his ball, on rebounding from it, approach the nearer to the head cushion from the vicinity of which he played, leads in the game. The loser in " stringing for the lead," as this is called, now places his ball near the foot of the table, and in- side an imaginary line drawn through the point B; and the play begins by the leader's play- ing from within the string on the ball of his antagonist. After the first shot no regard is paid to the string, to its corresponding limit at the foot of the table, or to the spots, unless one of the balls is accidentally played off the table, when if it be a player's ball its owner must play next time from within the string, and if it be a red ball it must be placed on its ap- propriate spot. A carom on a red and white ball counts two, in the regular rules of the game ; one on the two reds counts three, and on all the balls six. But these methods of counting are very frequently varied ; it being common to count every carom three, or as often to count each carom one. The game is won by the player who first makes a certain number of points; 100, 60, 34, and 21 are common numbers, according to the different games played. Where a pocket table is used and a pocket game played, to pocket a red ball counts three ; an adversary's ball (though this is seldom done by good players), two; to pocket one's own ball loses three if off a red, two if off an adversary's, three if direct. In beginning play again with or upon pocketed balls the same rules apply for replacing them that have just been given for replacing balls played off the table. In England, two white balls and one red are generally used on a six- pocket table, and the pocketing of a ball is called a " hazard ; " a " red winning hazard " (counting three) if the red be pocketed; a " white winning hazard " (counting two) if the white. Should the player pocket his own ball off the red, it is a " red losing hazard " (losing three) ; if off the white, a " white losing haz- ard " (losing two). Each carom, called in Eng- Six-pocket Table. land "cannon," counts two. The common limits for the game are 21 and 50. The game played in France is that best calculated to call out skill in the player. Three balls are used, two white and one red, on a carom table. Each carom counts one. This method, though universally called the French, is becoming very common among the better players in America, and is undoubtedly the highest form of bil- liards. In speaking of the game thus far, we have assumed that only two players are en- gaged ; but billiards can also be played by four, in two sets of partners; and a "three-handed game," though somewhat irregular, is also frequently made up, each player using that white ball which his predecessor had not used playing with "the still ball," as is techni- cally said. It is of course impossible in this article to describe or give directions for any of those peculiar methods of play which only practice can teach, and by which the balls can be made to perform such apparently impossible