In 1880, billiards were outlawed within 3 miles of Nassau Hall?

TRUE!  Because the green tables were considered too much a temptation for gambling, billiards were outlawed in the

State of New Jersey!

The tigers responded in two ways!  The famous Eating Clubs, which are private clubs for the students and alumni, started reserving single rooms as billiard rooms.  If you are EVER invited into a club on The Street …. be sure to peek inside these incredibly historic rooms! 

The tigers also bemoaned the new legislation with an article in the Princetonian:   “Billiards exeunt. Gone! They are gone. … Oh the cruel, cruel souls who feasted on the gnat and tasted not the camel. … Ah, be still sad heart. … But law—law transcendent—law whose seat is the bosom of the eternal and locus inflictus the State of New Jersey, law’s bright eye flasheth, that eye before whose flash the common sense of man doth fade as doth a match before the lime ball of a calcium-light.”