Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1896 — Old Billiard Facte. [ARTICLE]

Old Billiard Facte.

A billiard table can be built In twenty-four hours if carte blanche is given to the manufacturer, but he prefers to have time to get the right effects. from one month to six. The wood needs to be seasoned for a period of very nearly seven years. Rich, deep Spanish mahogany is used, pollard I oak, ebony and satin wood. Tables are not always covered in green. Blue is sometimes used and a pure olive green. The late Prince Leopold was the first to make use of the latter color, and olive green is known to-day in the billiard world as “Prince Leopold's color.” j The balls must be well seasoned beI fore they are used for play. Manufacturers have incubators in which to store them that they may undergo the drying process. Some incubators will hold fully 3000 balls. When they are first made they are “green.” Solid ivory is the only satisfactory material of which to make them; “artificial balls (those made of composition) are much heavier and do not wear well. English makers, to give the red balls a perfect color, steep them in a decoction that is sometimes described as the “guardsman's bath.” This is extracted from the old coats of “Tommy Atkins,” and for billiard balls it is the finest scarlet dye known.