The Balls
It is a very difficult thing to obtain three billiard balls that are perfectly true and of exactly equal weight. As ivory becomes more and more scarce, this difficulty will become greater, and recourse must be had to some of the modern composition balls, such as bonzoline or crystallate, with which excellent execution can be done so soon as a player becomes accustomed to the somewhat different angles at which they rebound from each other. These composition balls have, moreover, the additional merits of costing only about one-third the price of good ivory balls, and if quite true as regards weight and roundness when bought, are practically certain with fair usage to remain so indefinitely, which cannot be guaranteed in the case of ivory balls. The rough usage to which some amateurs subject the balls, may cause a set to be ruined and useless for accurate play. The player should strike a ball as though he loved it, unless the ball be so foul that it would not run true if struck gently.
In consequence of it being a very difficult thing, especially for an amateur, to strike a ball accurately, and thus to cause even a true ball to run on the table in a straight line, the balls are frequently accused of being "foul" when the foulness is in the way the ball has been struck. An excellent method to test the balls is to place a ball A, in front of and touching a ball B; with a third ball C, strike the ball B, the concussion will cause the ball A to run up or down the table in the same manner as though it had been struck true by the cue. If the ball A does not travel in a straight line, it must be because the ball is not true, or the table is not level. It is not difficult to decide which of these defects is the cause of the ball not running "true." For example, place the ball A so that the grain of the ivory identifies one side of the ball from the other, and make the stroke. Replace the ball in front of B, but now reverse the ball A, so that what was on the right is now on the left, and test again the course of the ball. If, after repeated trials, placing the ball A in various positions, it is found that this ball always diverges in one direction, we may be tolerably certain that it is the table that is foul. If, however, the ball sometimes diverges to the right, sometimes to the left, it is the ball that is foul.
Another very simple method is to place a ball in baulk, and strike this ball with sufficient force to cause it to run twice up and twice down the table; if the ball whilst running makes a sort of rattling noise, it is a foul ball, and instead of being a perfect sphere, inclined slightly to the shape of an egg.
The usual size of the billiard ball is 21 inches in diameter. When, however, a set of balls are purchased, it is desirable to have them slightly larger, viz., about 23.
After the balls have been in use for some time and have been subjected to a great deal of knocking about, the ivory not only becomes seasoned, but also expands unequally; so that the balls are no longer perfect spheres. They can then be sent to the makers to be turned down, and this turning will bring the balls down to 216 in diameter. An excellent plan to preserve billiard balls is to bury them, when play is finished, in sawdust saturated with sweet oil. The oil seems to be taken up by the ivory, so that the balls suck up, as it were, by night what the heat of the room has caused them to lose during the evening's or day's play. Heat is a great destroyer of the accuracy of billiard balls; consequently, in India, and in other hot climates, it is a very rare occurrence to find a set of billiard balls that are true. By placing these balls in oiled sawdust when not in use, they will be preserved during a much longer time than if this precaution be not taken.
When a table has been brushed and ironed, the surface of the cloth is so glossy that during the first few strokes the "trail" of the ball can be seen on the cloth, and by bringing the eyes on the same level as the table, we can examine the track of the ball, and note whether this track be perfectly straight or slightly curved. If a ball strike a cushion at an acute angle, the fact of striking this cushion will cause the ball to take a small amount of side, and, consequently, to diverge slightly from a straight course. This slightest divergence, therefore, must not be attributed to the ball being foul. Many inexperienced players, however, never seem to become acquainted with this fact, and assert, consequently, that the balls are very untrue.
One set of billiard balls usually differs from another set, both in weight and in elasticity. The angle, therefore, at which the player's ball glances off from the ball played at will be slightly different when all the other conditions are the same. This fact causes playing on a strange table and with strange balls to be somewhat puzzling at first, as all the angles seem to come off incorrectly.