Such a Sensation has been created in the Clubs by the appearance of the
last paper on Club Snobs, as can't but be complimentary to me who am one
of their number.
I belong to many Clubs. The 'Union Jack,' the 'Sash and
Marlin-spike'--Military Clubs. 'The True Blue,' the 'No Surrender,'
the 'Blue and Buff,' the 'Guy Fawkes,' and the 'Cato Street'--Political
Clubs. 'The Brummel' and the 'Regent'--Dandy Clubs. The 'Acropolis,' the
'Palladium,' the 'Areopagus,' the 'Pnyx' the 'Pentelicus,' the 'Ilissus'
and the 'Poluphloisboio Thalasses'--Literary Clubs. I never could make
out how the latter set of Clubs got their names; I don't know Greek for
one, and I wonder how many other members of those institutions do? Ever
since the Club Snobs have been announced, I observe a sensation created
on my entrance into any one of these places. Members get up and hustle
together; they nod, they scowl, as they glance towards the present Snob.
'Infernal impudent jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says Colonel Bludyer,
'I'll break every bone in his skin.' 'I told you what would come of
admitting literary men into the Club,' says Ranville Ranville to his
colleague, Spooney, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. 'These people
are very well in their proper places, and as a public man, I make a
point of shaking hands with them, and that sort of thing; but to have
one's privacy obtruded upon by such people is really too much. Come
along, Spooney,' and the pair of prigs retire superciliously.
As I came into the coffee-room at the 'No Surrender,' old Jawkins was
holding out to a knot of men, who were yawning, as usual. There he
stood, waving the STANDARD, and swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says
he, 'did I tell Peel last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you touch
the Sugar Question; if you touch the Sugar, you touch the Tea. I am no
monopolist. I am a liberal man, but I cannot forget that I stand on
the brink of a precipice; and if were to have Free Trade, give me
reciprocity. And what was Sir Robert Peel's answer to me? “Mr. Jawkins,”
he said--'
Here Jawkins's eye suddenly turning on your humble servant, he stopped
his sentence, with a guilty look--his stale old stupid sentence, which
every one of us at the Club has heard over and over again.
Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Snob. Every day he is at
that fireplace, holding that STANDARD, of which he reads up the
leading-article, and pours it out ORE ROTUNDO, with the most astonishing
composure, in the face of his neighbour, who has just read every word
of it in the paper. Jawkins has money, as you may see by the tie of his
neckcloth. He passes the morning swaggering about the City, in bankers'
and brokers parlours, and says:--'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and his
intentions are so and so. Graham and I were talking over the matter,
and I pledge you my word of honour, his opinion coincides with mine; and
that What-d'ye-call-um is the only measure Government will venture on
trying.' By evening-paper time he is at the Club: 'I can tell you the
opinion of the City, my lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones Loyd
looks at it is briefly this: Rothschilds told me so themselves. In
Mark Lane, people's minds are QUITE made up.' He is considered rather a
well-informed man.
He lives in Belgravia, of course; in a drab-coloured genteel house,
and has everything about him that is properly grave, dismal, and
comfortable. His dinners are in the MORNING HERALD, among the parties
for the week; and his wife and daughters make a very handsome appearance
at the Drawing-Room, once a year, when he comes down to the Club in his
Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform.
He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When I was in the
House, I &c.'--in fact he sat for Skittlebury for three weeks in the
first Reformed Parliament, and was unseated for bribery; since which he
has three times unsuccessfully contested that honourable borough.
Another sort of Political Snob I have seen at most Clubs and that is
the man who does not care so much for home politics, but is great upon
foreign affairs. I think this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere BUT
in Clubs. It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles,
at the expense of some ten thousand a-year each. He is the man who is
really seriously uncomfortable about the designs of Russia, and the
atrocious treachery of Louis Philippe. He it is who expects a French
fleet in the Thames, and has a constant eye upon the American President,
every word of whose speech (goodness help him!) he reads. He knows the
names of the contending leaders in Portugal, and what they are fighting
about: and it is he who says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be impeached,
and Lord Palmerston hanged, or VICE VERSA.
Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number of roubles
paid, by what house in the City, is a favourite theme with this kind of
Snob. I once overheard him--it was Captain Spitfire, R.N., (who had been
refused a ship by the Whigs, by the way)--indulging in the following
conversation with Mr. Minns after dinner.
Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party, Minns?
Because SHE CAN'T SHOW--why can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns,
why she can't show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed alive,
Minns--I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock,
three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House,
and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian
Embassy, before the ambassadress and four ladies'-maids, the Greek Papa,
and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen
dozen. She was knouted, sir, knouted in the midst of England--in
Berkeley Square, for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was
red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue
Minister?'
Minns: 'Good Ged!'
Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest and wisest of
human beings.