Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-01-01
THE BILLIARD BALL.
From First to Last Its Career is Som
what EyentfuI.

From First to Last Its Career is Some
what Eventful.
There are few men or things that are
called upon to roll into more close cor
ners or queer situations than is billiard
ball. That is, of course, after it has be-
come full fedged billiard ball. Its ca
reer prior to this is rather monotonous.
An elephant, either in Asia or Africa,
carries it with him in his wanderings
very near his trunk. 1t is then known
as tusk.
The transition from being an Gle
plants tusk to being a billiard ball in
good standing is not sudden. It takes
time to effect it. In the first place it is
not every tusk that is suitable to make
"a billiard ball from. There are several
factories in New York City, and they
say that it takes a good while to turn
out a perfect ball. The firms here, how
ever, have to do but part of the work,
for they get the tusks that are of the
proper quality sent to them cut into
sections, each section being large
enough to allow of the turning of a
single ball out of it. Most of this ma
terial comes from Hamburg. The ivory
is so marked that the turner's here
know what part of the tusk each piece
comes from, and in this way can calcu-
late as to the grain and quality of the
article.
It requires skilled labor to turn out a
billiard ball. One-half of it is first
turned, an instrument of the finest
steel being used for the work. Then
the half-t3rned ball is hung up in a
net, and is allowed to hang there for a
year to dry. Then the second half is
turned, and then comes the polishing.
Whitening and water and a good deal of
rubbing are necessary for this. 1t is
necessary in the end that the ball shall
to the veriest fraction of grain be of a
certain weight.
It is after being placed on the billiard
table that the real life of the billiard
ivory just as there are in the epidermis.
These may close, and then, if in hot
room, the ball is likely to crack, or it
may crack by reason of conclusion with
other balls. During the first stage the
billiard ball may mix in almost any so
ciety It may gyrate under the magic
cue of Slosson, a Schaefer, Vignaux
or some other champion, or it may be
toyed with by fair DANES in private bill
iard-rooms in swell houses on Murray
HILL
When it cracks it drops a step lower.
It is sent to factory and small frac-
ton of nick is shaved off from it. You
next see it in some second-rate billiard
room ON Sixth avenue. Finally it rolls
even lower and into some secondhand
shop, and thence into a Bowery saloon
where ''crooks manipulate it to the dis
NAV and discontinue of visitors from
the rural districts. The rest is soon told
The balls become cracked, decrepit and
practically useless for the purpose for
which they We're made. Then they are
bought up by dealers, are cut up and
made into smaller articles If the worst
comes to the worst, they can be burned
and used in the making of ivory black
A checkered life enough is that of
billiard BALM. Y. Mail and Express.
Counterfeit Stamps.
Few people know how much counter
feiting is done in the line of postage
stamps, and how profitable business it
is. Stamps are not counterfeiters for
the purpose of being used to transmit
letters through the mails, but to be sold
70 collectors. Germany is the head