CHAPTER IV.

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.