cording to agreement.] 12. No points are reckoned for a ball or balls forced off the table after contact with the object-ball, and the adversary goes on without breaking the balls. 13. If the balls be changed in the course of play, no cannon or hazard made with such changed ball can be scored ; the balls must be broken^ and all points made with the wrong ball deducted from the striker s score. [In such case, however, the adversary has the privilege of playing with the changed ball, of re-changing the balls and playing on from their respective positions, or of having the balls broken.] 14. The player whose ball is in hand cannot score, unless he play his ball out of Laulk before striking the object-ball. [In such case the stroke must 1.3 re-made.] 15. If in drawing back his cue from a ball on the brink of a pocket the striker hole his ball, he loses three points, as for a coup. 16. A ball accidentally moved by the marker or a looker-on must be replaced. 17. A ball wilfully removed or obstructed in its course causes the loss of the offender s game. 18. If the striker s ball lie touching his opponent s ball, or the red ball, no score on that side can follow. [After the stroke the next player proceeds with his game, either by breaking the balls, or playing from the spot where his ball stopped. When balls touch, the player may either run into a pocket, or play on to a third ball ; then the red is spotted and the adversary plays on from baulk ; or if the first player fail to do either, the balls remain as they fall, and the other goes on.]
These, with the exception of some remarks about the conduct of strangers, the payment of wagers, and so on, are tiie rules by which the English game of billiards is universally governed. The principal modifications of this game are the four-handed game, which is ordinary billiards by four players in sides of two, each player being allowed to instruct his partner ; a la royale, or the game of three ; the white winning game, consisting entirely of winning hazards ; the white losing game ; the red winning game; the red losing game; the cannon game; and the American game. This last is played with four balls, two white and two coloured, and consists entirely of winning hazards and cannons. There is also a Russian game, called .carline or Caroline, not unlike American biUiards ; a German game, Wurst-partie, in which a certain number of balls are placed in a row across the table ; the Spanish, or -gkittle game, which the Germans call Kugel-partie ; and French billiards or the cannon game formerly universal on the Continent, and now very popular in the United States, where the best players are Frenchmen or men of French ex traction. Of these games, however, it is unnecessary to speak, as they are all much inferior to billiards, and can be easily played by any one familiar with the established English game. The lesser varieties of billiards choice of balls, in which each player selects the ball he plays with ; bricole, in which the player strikes his ball against a cushion and endeavours to reach his opponent s ball from the rebound ; bar-hole, so called from a pocket or pockets being barred or stopped for one of the players; one pocket to five; winning against losing ; the nomination game, which is ordinary billiards, in which the player is obliged to name his stroke before attempting it, and failing to make it gains nothing, or gives unnamed cannons and hazards to his opponent; the commanding game; the go-back game, which id played by an adept against a tyro, the latter scoring all he makes and the former going back to nothing every time his adversary makes a winning or losing hazard ; all these are so barren of interest and so seldom played as barely to deserve mention.
As to the science of the game, there is really little to be taught in books ; practice and instruction from an adept will better enlighten a tyro as to the mysteries of the side- stroke, the drag, the screw, the following ball, the spot- stroke, &c., than any amount of verbal explanation. It may, however, be as well to refer briefly to these several points, in order to render this notice as complete as the space at command will admit.
The side-stroke is made by striking the object-ball on the side with the point of the cue. The effect of such a mode of striking the ball is to make it travel to the right or to the left, according as it is struck with a winding or slightly circular motion ; and its pur pose is to cause the ball to proceed in a direction more or iess slant ing than is usual, or ordinary, when the ball is struck in or about the centre of its circumference. Many hazards and cannons, quite impossible to be made with the central stroke, are accomplished with ease and certainty by the side-stroke. In the hands of a dex terous player this stroke is both elegant and effective. The screw, or twist, is made by striking the ball low down, with a sharp, sud den blow. According as the ball is struck nearer and nearer to the cushion, it stops dead at the point of concussion with the object- ball, or recoils by a series of reverse revolutions, in the manner familiar to the schoolboy in throwing forward a hoop, and causing it to return to his hand by the twist given to its first impetus. The folloicing-ba.il is made by striking the ball high, with a flowing or following motion of the cue. Just as the low-stroke impedes the motion of the ball, the follow expedites it. In the drag the ball is struck low without the sudden jerk of the screw, and with less than the onward push of the follow. The S2wt-stroke is a winning hazard made by pocketing the red ball in one of the corners from the spot. The great art is, first, to make sure of the hazard, and next, to leave the striking ball in such a position as to enable the player to make a similar stroke in one or other of the corner pockets. To such perfection has the spot-stroke been brought, that the winning hazard has been repeated more than two hundred and fifty times consecutively. W. Cook, the finest of English players, on November 29, 18/3, in a game with the ex-champion, Joseph Bennett, made a break of 936, the longest on record. In this great performance Cook made, in all, no fewer than 292 spot-hazards, 2GO of which were made consecutively. John Roberts, jnn., of Manchester, haa also made an extraordinary break, 800, the majority by the spot- stroke. Without the spot-hazard, the longest break hitherto nudo is probably less than 200.
The perfection of billiards is to be found in the nice combination of the various strokes, in such fashion as to leave the balls in a favourable position after each individual hazard and cannon ; and this perfection can only be attained by the most constant and unremitting practice.
Pyramids is played by two or four persons in the latter case in sides, two and two. It is played with fifteen balls, placed close together in the form of a triangle or pyramid, with the apex towards the player, and a white striking ball. The centre of the apex ball covers the second or pyramid spot, and the balls forming the pyramid should lie in a compact mass, the base in a straight line with the cushion.
Pyramids is a game entirely of winning hazards, and he who succeeds in pocketing the greatest number of balls wins. Usually the pyramid is made of fifteen red or coloured balls, with the striking ball white. This white ball is common to both players. Having decided on the lead, the first player, placing his ball in the baulk- semicircle, strikes it up to the pyramid, with a view cither to lodge a ball in a pocket or to get the white safely back into baulk. Should he fail to pocket a red ball, the other player goes on and strikes the white ball from the place at which it stopped. "When either succeeds in making a winning hazard, he plays at any other ball he chooses, and continues his break till he ceases to score; and so the game is continued by alternate breaks until the last red ball is pocketed. The game is commonly played for a stake upon the whole, and a proportionate sum upon each ball or life, as, for instance, 3s. game and Is. balls. The player wins a life by pocket ing a red ball or forcing it over the table ; and loses a life by run ning his own, the white, ball into a pocket, missing the red balls, or intentionally giving a miss. In this game the baulk is no pro tection ; that is to say, the player can pocket any ball wherever it lies, either within or without the baulk line, and whether the white be in hand or not. This liberty is a great and certain advantage under many circumstances, especially in the hands of a good player. It is not a veiy uncommon occurrence for an adept to pocket six or eight balls in a single break. Both Cook and Roberts have been known, indeed, to pocket the whole fifteen. If four persons play at pyramids, the rotation is decided by chance, and each plays alternately, partners, as in billiards, being allowed to advise each other, each going on and continuing to play as long as he can, and ceasing when he misses a hazard. Foul strokes are reckoned as in billiards, except as regards balls touching each other. If two balls touch, the player proceeds with his game and scores a point for every winning hazard. When all the red balls but one are pocketed, he who made the last hazard plays with the white and his opponent with the red ; and so on alternately, till the game terminates by the holeing of one or other ball. The pyramid balls are usually a little smaller than the billiard balls ; the former are about 2 inches in diameter, the latter 2 T V inches to 2? inches.
Losing Pyramids, seldom played, is the reverse of the last-named game, and consists of losing hazards, each player using the same striking ball, and taking a ball from the pyramid for every losing
