Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Countless brands of cigars, cigarettes, wines and liquors, have been the fashion with the flash crowd that frequents public billiard-rooms and consumes unlimited tobacco and drink, merely because some famous 'Juliet' or 'Marguerite' has 'consented' to lend her name to the articles in question; and half the grog-shops on both sides of the Atlantic display to the admiring street the most alarming pink and white caricatures, or monstrously enlarged photographs, of the three or four celebrated lyric sopranos who happen to be before the public at any one time.
Pen furnished his host with these desirable supplies a couple of days after he had made his appearance at Clavering: and no sooner were these small funds in Sir Francis's pocket, than the latter found he had business at Chatteris and at the neighbouring watering-places, of which shire boasts many, and went off to see to his affairs, which were transacted, as might be supposed, at the county race-grounds and billiard-rooms.
Granger in silence through dining and billiard-rooms, saloon and picture-gallery, boudoir and music-room, in all of which the Elizabethan air, the solemn grace of a departed age, had been maintained with a marvellous art. Money can do so much; above all, where a man has no bigoted belief in his own taste or capacity, and will put his trust in the intelligence of professional artists.
Here is the point to be weighed upon these foul-mouthed persons in the betting-ring are able to travel about all spring, summer, and autumn, staying in the best hotels and lacking nothing; in winter they can loll away their time in billiard-rooms. Once more, who supplies the means? It is the senseless outside public who imagine they know something about "sport."
I have put this together because I hear hourly parents deprecating the system of education in the greatest city of Western Canada; because I hear and see children of fourteen swaggering about the streets with all the consequence of unfledged men, smoking cigars, frequenting tavern-bars and billiard-rooms, and no doubt led by such unbridled license into deeper mysteries and excesses; because I hear clergymen lament that boys of that age lose their health by excesses too difficult of belief to fancy true.
My father would not have me, he said, for ever dangling in barracks, or smoking in country billiard-rooms. I have no taste for law: and as for diplomacy, I have no relations in the Cabinet, and no uncles in the House of Peers. Could my uncle, who is in Parliament, help me much, do you think? or would he, if he could? or Barnes, his noble son and heir, after him?
It of course has theatres, hotels, billiard-rooms, and balls; these northern people are fond of dancing, I have read. We shall have ample amusement with the fair islanders."
It is sometimes used as a free hanging frieze, so to speak, and sometimes a great piece of it is hung flat against the wall, but as a general thing to panel it is the better way. Another beautiful wall covering is leather. It should be used much more than it is, and is especially well adapted for halls, libraries, dining-rooms, smoking-and billiard-rooms, and dens.
Thus, at Honolulu, the capital of the Sandwich Islands, there are fine dwelling-houses, several hotels, and barber-shops, ay, even billiard-rooms; but all these are owned and used, be it observed, by whites. There are tailors, and blacksmiths, and carpenters also; but not one of them is a native.
Men would still travel from the ends of the Five Towns to the bar, the billiard-rooms, the banqueting-halls of the Five Towns Hotel, where every public or semi-public ceremonial that included conviviality was obliged to happen if it truly respected itself. The Five Towns Hotel had made fortunes, and still made them. It was large and imposing and sombre.
Word Of The Day