25 YEARS AGO

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 21, 20 October 1937, Page 10

25 YEARS AGO

Billiards At Y.M.C.A.’s (From “The Dominion,” October 23, 1912.) A spirited protest against the use. of billiard tables in Y.M.C.A. institutions was made by a speaker at the Baptist conference public meeting in Cbristchurcn. He had been dealing with the subject of gambling, and then went on to say that there was another thing against which he must enter an indignant protest. He knew he would incur the charges of being narrow and puritanical, but he felt he was right. “We are,” he said, “erecting fine costly buildings all oyer the land for our young men’s Christian associations, and splendid institutions they are, but in these institutions there are. well-fitted-up billiard rooms. Is that right ?” Might this not be the first step toward the game for a “shipping up,” toward the gambling fever, toward the suicide's grave, he asked. Cards was an intellectual game. Why not have a card-room, with tables for whist, bezique, baccarat, and poker? Why should they stop at billiards?

An initial battleship of a new type, larger than the Dreadnought, has been laid down at Portsmouth. She is . expected to be launched in record time. Germany is mounting 15-inch guns, throwing a shell of 1650 pounds weight, in the three super-Dreadnoughts now building. Fourteen-inch guns are being mounted in the battleships of the Kaise_r class.

♦ ♦ ♦ The tender of Messrs. Sanders Bros., Wellington, has been accepted for the erection of a new theatre for the Wellington Opera House Company. The building is to be erected in Manners Street east, from plans designed by the Hon. W. Pitt, Melbourne.