Litchfield enquirer., 1860-12-20
DOESTICKS ON BILLIARDS. From the Sunday Mercury.

l
 From the Sunday Mercury.
 Z M. Berger, the celebrated French player , who is as much the king of the Billiard Ts , ble as Paul Morphy is Emperor the Ches
 Board, has lately arrived in this country and is now the guest of MT. Michael Phear His wonderful playing has been the them
 Of the daily papers for several days, but "
 think none of the reporters for the dailie ] are quite equal to the task of describing th'
 miraculous shots of the round Frenchman and we have prevailed on our friend Doe
 sticks to give his impressions, as follows: I .,,. :" need hsrdly tell you that the game o
 plillsrds consists in punching ivory balls
 about on big table covered with green
 cloth that looks like half an acre of meadow
 land with an India rubber fence around it:
 that the balls are punched with long wooden
 ramrods, with wax on the end to save the
 wood, and leather on the end to save the
 wax, and chalk put on to keep the leather
 from wearing out. You take your ramrod and rub some chalk on the little end; then you squint; then you lift up your leg; then you fiddle little on your left hand with your ramrod; then yoh punch your ball; if your ball runs against the other mans ball you've done big thing, and you poke up q lot of buttons that are strung on wire- ! This is all there is of the game of billiards. Anybody can punch bilards-I can and maybe you could
 Well, Berger has come the great French puncher; and of course Eve been to see him punch few billiards with Pbelan who is q | fair puncher himself, but he can't punch so fast as Berger-in fact B. has to give P. Q hundred buttons or so in every game. I've often played with Phelan myself, but he al- ways beat me; he has private understand ing with the man that pokes the buttons wheu Phelan punches tho balls the man pokes the buttons-when 1 punches the balls nary button will the man poke. So Phelan goes out. but my game is little the best in fact, have challenged Phcan to play me game of a thousand buttons for lot of money, and I've offered to keep the game myself. so as to be sure all is fair Phelans conspiracy with men who poke the buttons is a disgraceful thing; it discourages young men, aud makes them think they can't punch billiards as well as Phelan can. I'm bound to break it up. Berger has bought over all fhelan's button pokers--pays enl' more money than Phclan did, and now they give Berger all the buttons.
 " Ha! ha! Big thing on Michael!
 " Lon Friday, Berger was going to do some punching, and there was l in the midst. Berger is fat man the top of his head is as bald as goose egg, and he has got stomach like three foot celestial globe-n fact, he is shaped just like bill iard ball, aLd might be used for one, if you'd take his boots of, and ties his heels to the back of his neck-only don't want him to carom on me
 "ITe brought all his own tools with him from Frarce-a table that isn't so long by d few feet as Phelan generally makes his-a lot of balls and ramrods, and everything. Room was full ,all anxious to see the French man punch and the Frenchman punched, and pretty good punching it was. He made the balls hop all over the table, and gene rally had three in the air at once. Neil Bryant was there, and Neil is a pretty good judge of billiard punching. l did my fa- vorite shot with great success, jumped my ball off the table, caromed on Neil Bryant, and holed it in a spittoon.
 "Phelan said it was big thing, so did Neil Berger rolled himself round to the corner of the table, chalked his ramrod, and executed fancy lick he made his ball run three times round the table, on the edge of the cushion, leap off at sharp angle, carom on Neil Bryant, come back to the ta- ble, take eighteen cushions, and stop exact ly on the center spot.
 Phelau had Q try. He did one of the simple shots I taught him-the one when the cue ball takes twenty-one cushions, knocks the hats off of three Dutchmen in the corner, comes back, and stops inside the string. Berger didn't think much of that so he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and put in tremendous lick the ball hit Phean on the middle vest button, caromcd on Neil Bryant, came back to the table and took four cushions, went out of the window, gave stage-driver black eye, came back and took cushion, caromed on Neil Bry- ant, took two cushions, went twice round the block, took cushion, went out through an- other window, and came in through the sky light, took four cushions, and caromed on Neil Bryant, and all in four minutes, with out stopping for breath or sweating hair.
 " All hands were occupied for forty min utes in reviviDg Phelan, who had tainted from envy. ..>
 Berger then made his grand shot--he put such tremendous twist on his ball that it took every cushion on every table in the room, caromed on Neil Bryant, lodged out of the window, travelled once or twice up and down Broadway, ran into a shooting gallery, rang the bell nine times in rapid succession, and came back to the table, pre- viously executing two brilliant caroms on Neil Bryant.
 "This concluded the show, as suppos- ed, but as got to the corner of Broadway and Broome street, I caught sight of Neil Bryant rushing round the corner, closely pursued by two billiard balls, from which l suppose Berger must have done another fan- cy shot or two after I left. .,
 But Phelan's conspiracy with the oiii- iard markers all over the country IS ou'ra- geous He has every one Of them so lal under his control that there isn't place in the United States, where, when play bill iards with Michael Phelan, the marker doesn't count more for him than for me. Indignantly yours, DoEsTIcKs, P. R. The following ambiguous compliment was usedby lover writing to his mistress:
 "How wish, my dear Adelinc, my engage ments would permit me to leave town and go to see you! It would be like visiting some old fbo,I