p. 195 | Billiards by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 26, 1883

Billiards.

By Editor

Now that the daily papers are devoting so much space to accounts of billiard matches by experts; and since the game is so universally lauded as perfectly harmless, the following from the St. Charles (Ill.) Leader, a secular paper, is interesting reading:—

“It is the most fascinating game yet discovered, fairly bewitching its devotee, while it robs him. Ask any man who has once been within its power and escaped. And again, it isn’t one step from tobacco and billiards to whisky; it’s only half a step. If we desire to graduate young men for the gutter, let us open two shops, or three, or four. We haven’t a word to say in this article to those young men who have leisure and money to squander in this way. It is their loss—not ours. But we do say we are sorry, indeed, to see poor fellows who have others dependent upon them, huddled in a billiard shop, and spending every cent they can get on this captivating game. Many a man who loves the game, and cannot afford to play it, goes to the hall thinking he will only look on; but the first thing he knows, some one has challenged him; he takes the cue, thinking he will play but one game—only one—and stop. He puts the cue down when his money is all gone. And many a man caught in this way has a wife and children, suffering in a chilly home for the common necessaries of life; for something palatable to eat and warm to wear. This is the legitimate harvest of a billiard shop.”