Biloxi Boy
Man With A Golden Arm
"The rails around the billiard table bed were padded with many layers of wool felt. The stacked felt was then covered with two or three layers of cloth or a layer of cloth covered with leather. Rubber padding on billiard table rails was not used until Victorian times. Rubber gave a better rebound surface, unless the room was too cold, as unheated rooms often were in a British winter. Before the vulcanization of rubber later in the century, the rubber became very brittle when it was cold. If a billiard ball were to strike the rubber with any force, it could break. Therefore, early Victorian billiard tables with rubber-filled rails came with a set of metal pans which could be placed under and around a billiard table prior to a game. They were filled with boiling water an hour or two before the game in order to warm the rubber enough to make it soft and pliable when the game was played. Regency players never had to worry about this problem, since their billiard table rails were all padded with felt. Net bags were suspended under each pocket in a billiard table to catch balls which were knocked into the pockets. Some of these were very simple net bags, while others had decorative patterns worked into the netting and were finished off with tassels or other ornaments."
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Billiards in the Regency
The Regency version of the game was played very differently than the way it is played today. It required only three balls, no rack and a mace was used as often as a cue. The only similarity between…
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