Indoor recreation was the most popular form of recreation as the long and arduous working hours and strict observance of Sundays as the day of rest meant that the evenings were the main time for recreation for working people. Wealthier people may have room in their house for a billiard or bagatelle table whilst poorer people favoured board , card or word games. In 1899 Walter Henry Howe publishes his Everybody's book of indoor games listing rules for the most popular games. This book provides the rules for several games using a billiards table including billiards, pool and american pool. Although there is no mention of snooker there is a game listed called pyramids which used one white and 15 red balls although no use is made of the higher value coloured balls used in modern snooker. A backgammon set dating 1850 Board games listed include chess, draughts, fox and geese, halma and reversi although most space is given to backgammon. Dominoes features with 17 different domino related games including favourites suck as the draw game and threes and fives. Card games listed include all fours,cribbage,bezique.ecarte.euchre and piquet although prominence is given to Whist. Word games were also popular as they could be adapted to fit the ability levels of all participants and households and of course there was no cost attached. Popular games included anagrams,acrostics, buried cities, conundrums, enigmas,rebuses , riddles and transpositions. The most popular word game was charades for which a specific page on this site exists. Click the button to visit