LATE SITTINGS—FINES—CARDS—CHARACTERS—SUPPER CLUBS
Amongst the changes in club-life in London, perhaps the most striking is
the almost total cessation of the late sittings in which members
formerly indulged. Various causes have contributed to make people in the
West End of London keep earlier hours, of which the most notable is that
the number of unoccupied men, who once formed a large proportion of
those living in what is called the fashionable part of the town, has
shrunk to a very small number, if it has not altogether ceased to exist.
In other days there were plenty of young bachelors with something under
a thousand a year who spent their life in complete idleness. A club was
the pivot of their existence, and here they would often sit till the
small-hours of the morning.
Another cause of early hours is the great popularity of motoring and
golf, the widespread indulgence in which does anything but promote a
love of sitting up late.
At the time when a great number of people had nothing to do all day, not
a few regarded the night as being the most amusing part of their
existence, when they could forgather with choice spirits and sit talking
one against the other, as the old phrase had it, “till all was blue.”
As illustrating the lateness of the hours formerly kept by members of
some West End clubs, a story used to be told about a staid country
member who, arriving at one of these institutions, having travelled by a
night train, went up to the coffee-room and began to order breakfast,
upon which he was told, by a sleepy waiter, that no suppers were served
after 6 a.m.
One of the latest sitters was Theodore Hook, so renowned for spontaneous
wit. He was very proud of a peculiar receipt of his own for the
prevention of exposure to the evil effects of night air. “I was once
very ill,” said he, “and my doctor gave me particular orders not to
expose myself to it; so I come up (from Fulham) every day to
Crockford’s, or some other place, to dinner, ever since which I have
made it a rule on no account to go home again till about four or five
o’clock in the morning.”
Those were the days when the closing hours of a number of West End clubs
were much later than is at present the case. Now there are seldom many
members to be found in a club-house after one, and fines have become
rare. Up to about fifteen or twenty years ago, considerable laxity
prevailed as to enforcing these penalties which are exacted for sitting
up after a certain hour, but the introduction of more business-like
habits into West End life has put an end to such a state of affairs.
Late sittings at clubs were, of course, in the vast majority of
instances, connected with card-playing; and when this pastime was more
prevalent than is now the case, some confirmed lovers of whist, and
later of bridge, occasionally sat very late indeed.
Whist is now practically an obsolete game, and it is curious to recall
that the introduction of short whist was once considered a great
innovation. “Major A.,” the author of “Short Whist,” a book which was
famous in the middle of the last century, gives the following account
of its origin: “This revolution was occasioned by a worthy Welsh
Baronet preferring his lobster for supper hot. Four first-rate
whist-players—consequently four great men—adjourned from the House of
Commons to Brooks’s, and proposed a rubber while the cook was busy.
‘The lobster must be hot,’ said the Baronet. ‘A rubber may last an
hour,’ said another, ‘and the lobster may be cold again or spoiled
before we finish.’ ‘It is too long,’ said a third. ‘Let us cut it
shorter,’ said the fourth. Carried _nem. con._ Down they sat, and
found it very lively to win or lose so much quicker. Besides
furnishing conversation for supper, the thing was new—they were
legislators, and had a fine opportunity to exercise their calling.”
Another version was supplied by James Clay, who was one of the principal
authorities on whist in his day. His account is as follows:
“Some eighty years back, Lord Peterborough having one night lost a large
sum of money, the friends with whom he was playing proposed to make the
game five points instead of ten, in order to give the loser a chance, at
a quicker game, of recovering his loss. The late Mr. Hoare of Bath, a
very good whist-player, and without a superior at piquet, was one of
this party, and used frequently to tell this story.”
Whatever the origin of short whist may have been, the controversy
between the advocates of long whist and those who supported the new game
was a bitter struggle. Innovators are always hated, and have their
characters blackened by those who have grown too old to care for the
new, or those who are too unintelligent to do so. The clergy to a man
were for long whist.
The laws of whist were first codified in England at the instance of Mr.
Baldwin. The Turf Club in 1863 was called the Arlington. The matter was
suggested to the committee of the Arlington, and a number of members
were appointed to investigate matters and compile a code. These were:
George Bentinck, M.P. for West Norfolk; John Bushe, son of the Chief
Justice of “Patronage” fame; J. Clay, M.P., chairman; Charles C.
Grenville; Sir Rainald Knightley, M.P.; H. B. Mayne, G. Payne, and
Colonel Ripon. When completed, the code was submitted to the Portland
Club, and a committee of this the chief whist club of the country
considered its contents. This committee consisted of H. D. Jones,
chairman, the father of the late “Cavendish,” who died in 1899; Charles
Adams, W. F. Baring, H. Fitzroy, Samuel Petrie, H. M. Riddell, and R.
Wheble. It was on April 30, 1864, that the code was officially
sanctioned—a red-letter day in the annals of whist.
The triumph of bridge over whist is a matter of recent social history
which will be dealt with later on.
The greatest breach of regulations ever committed was probably that
which occurred in a well-known West End club some thirteen or fourteen
years ago, when two members sat through the whole night at cards, and
became so absorbed in their game that they were still sitting there at
the re-opening at nine the next morning. Notwithstanding the arrival of
a number of outraged members, they continued playing till one, when,
having reluctantly risen from the card-table, they walked out into the
sunlight, handing in their resignations as they left. As a matter of
fact, the stakes played for were comparatively moderate, and the
differences at the close of the séance were consequently small. Both
men, it should be added, were confirmed sitters-up, and the abnormal
hours kept by them on several previous occasions had called forth
remonstrances from the committee. At the majority of London clubs, fines
are inflicted on those sitting up after the hours of one-thirty or two,
though in some cases they begin earlier or later. In such club-houses as
are not definitely closed at two-thirty or three, the fines gradually
rise till the hour of five or six o’clock is reached, when any further
sojourn in the club-house is punished by expulsion.
The amount to be paid for remaining in certain clubs till the actual
time of closing is considerable; nevertheless there have been instances
of members remaining to the very last minute who were not card-players,
and merely sat up through indifference or thoughtlessness.
The present writer remembers one member who actually had to pay a fine
of £17 for sitting all alone in a club till the doors were closed. This
gentleman had a perfect mania for not going to bed, and his habit of
keeping the whole club-house going, long after the other members were in
bed, eventually caused a complete readjustment of the scale of fines and
the adoption of an earlier hour for closing. As a matter of fact, though
he paid the heavy fines with perfect complacency, the sums received were
not sufficient to cover the expenses of lighting, servants, and the
like, for the whole establishment, of course, had to be kept going till
it was his pleasure to depart.
In old days, quite a number of club-men would habitually turn night into
day; but this is no longer the case, and the few members who still
adhere to the habits of another age are generally regarded with little
favour by committees. Several clubs, as a matter of fact, have altered
their hours entirely to prevent the club-house from being kept open
solely for the benefit of one or two members.
Another complaint against late sitters is that the club servants, in
consequence of being obliged to keep later hours, are unfitted for their
work; but there is really no particular reason why this should be the
case, as a different staff comes on duty towards the evening, the
members of which, at several clubs, are allotted a certain proportion of
any fines.
The latest club of all used formerly to be the Garrick, where, in the
days when the late Sir Henry Irving, Mr. Toole, and others, came to
supper in the small dining-room, very late or rather very early hours
indeed were kept. Within the last few years, late sittings have ceased
to be the order of the day except on certain occasions, and new rules
have been made, the general tendency of which is to encourage a
comparatively early retirement to bed. An exception, however, is made in
favour of Saturday night, the traditional evening for suppers at the
Garrick.
One of the latest clubs in London used to be the St. James’, founded
more than forty years ago by the late Marquis d’Azeglio and others. One
of the objects for which this club was formed was to provide a
meeting-place for secretaries and attachés after balls and parties, and
for this reason no fine at all was inflicted before 4 p.m. It may also
be added that in former years such fines as did exist were not very
rigorously enforced. Quite a different state of affairs, however, now
prevails, the whole scale of fines having been readjusted some years
ago, owing to which—and other causes—late sittings are now things of the
past.
The Beefsteak Club, like the Garrick, once contained quite a number of
members who had a great disinclination to go to bed, and who lingered
late over the pleasant talk of the supper-table. Here also the spirit of
the age has effected a change, for practically all the old school of
Beefsteakers, of which that most delightful of men, the late Joseph
Knight, was such a brilliant example, are gone, and the hours kept are
now very reasonable.
The Turf Club, which used formerly to be full of people after the
theatres were closed, is now somewhat deserted at night, and the same
state of affairs prevails at practically all the West End clubs.
The late hours once kept by many club-men were in a great measure the
cause of the dislike with which a number of old-fashioned, strait-laced
people used to regard London clubs, which, as has already been said,
were denounced as pernicious resorts where drinking and gaming were by
no means unknown. To-day such accusations can no longer with any justice
be sustained.
In France, however, the state of affairs as regards gaming, at least, is
very different, for, owing to the heavy tax levied by Government upon
club funds, no institution of the nature of a club can be prosperously
conducted without some amount of gambling. Indeed, most French clubs of
any social standing derive a considerable portion of their income from
card-money, and not a few permit baccarat, the profits of which, drawn
from the Cagnotte, bring in a large sum of money to the club funds. In
England, however, except in a few exceptional cases—Crockford’s, for
instance—no club has ever existed for the avowed purpose of play. To
begin with, public opinion has always viewed this pastime (which so
often degenerates into a vice) with extremely unfavourable eyes, and no
one of any position has cared to be seen openly risking large sums of
money upon the turn of a card. In addition to this, any protracted
continuance of high play in a club has always been reprobated by a large
majority of members as being likely to produce a scandal—and, as a
matter of fact, a scandal has almost invariably followed in the wake of
high play.
The French, many of whom set aside a certain amount of money to be used
for play—a _bourse du jeu_, as it is called—are well aware of the danger
of losing their heads at cards; but the vast majority of Englishmen are
soon made nervous and excited when once they have been caught by the
fascination of play. For this reason—or some other—a high game never
goes on very long without the occurrence of a catastrophe, for sooner or
later someone will lose a far larger sum of money than he can either
afford or pay. The generality of club members limit their gambling to a
mild game of bridge, and there is very little play at anything else now.
Some twenty years ago, however, there was a slight epidemic of the
gaming fever in the West End of London, and quite a number of so-called
“clubs,” the only object of which was high play, were started, mostly by
shrewd veterans of the sporting world, some of whom remembered the days
when hazard had extracted such vast sums from the pockets of careless
Corinthians, and when wily Crockford conducted his great Temple of
Chance in St. James’s Street. Such clubs were, of course, furnished with
a committee and an elaborate set of rules, the most respected of which
were those relating to the fines. These, after a certain hour, brought
much grist to the proprietors’ mills. Such clubs were in reality little
but miniature casinos, and the main, if not the sole, qualification for
membership lay in being possessed of ample funds and a tendency to part
with them easily. The chief of these institutions were situated off
Piccadilly and St. James’s Street, about which the spirit of that
reckless speculation which raged in this neighbourhood so fiercely in
the eighteenth century has always had a tendency to linger.
Baccarat was the game played at these haunts, and, though everything was
quite fairly conducted, the loss of large sums by well-known young men
about town eventually attracted considerable comment, and before very
long the Park Club was raided by the police, upon which occasion a high
legal luminary, it is said, was with the greatest difficulty smuggled
out of the place. A celebrated trial, at the end of which baccarat was
finally ruled to be an illegal game, resulted in the closing of this
club. A somewhat similar institution, the Field Club, rose on its ashes,
but this also was eventually raided and put an end to. Since that time
one or two small clubs have been formed by a certain number of people
desirous of playing bridge or poker for high stakes, but all of them
have had a brief existence. The clubs just mentioned, it should be
added, were quite different from the gaming clubs of the past, the
members being rich men well able to take care of themselves, and the
only reason for their cessation was that, as the membership was in every
case very limited, they got tired of playing at the game of dog eat dog.
Sixty years ago, and later, there was a good deal of high play in London
clubs. During the action for libel brought by Lord de Ros, when he had
been accused of cheating at Graham’s, one witness admitted that in the
course of fifteen years he had won £35,000, chiefly at whist; another
said that his winnings averaged £1,600 a year. He generally played from
three to five hours daily before dinner, and did not deny often having
played all night.
Graham’s, 87 St. James’s Street, was at that time the headquarters of
whist, and here it was said Lord Henry Bentinck invented the “Blue
Peter,” or call for trumps.
Here Lieutenant-Colonel Aubrey, who declared that, next to winning,
losing was the greatest pleasure in the world, is supposed once to have
lost £35,000.
Bridge is said to have been first played in London at the Portland in
the autumn of 1894, when it was introduced by Lord Brougham.
He was, it is said, playing whist, and, as he dealt the last card,
neglected to turn it face upwards. By way of apology he then said: “I’m
sorry, but I thought I was playing bridge;” and by way of explanation he
gave a brief description of the new game, which so attracted his
fellow-members that it soon took the place of whist.
Bridge, however, had been played long before this in Eastern Europe, and
even in Persia, where the present writer perfectly remembers it as a
popular game as far back as 1888.
The members of a colony of Greeks, indeed, are said to have played a
sort of bridge in Manchester eighteen years before this, though the
value of no trumps and of four aces was rather less than is now the
case.
The headquarters of bridge is the Portland Club, now located at the
corner of St. James’s Square. It moved here from Stratford Place, its
old original home having been in Bloomsbury Square. For everything
connected with bridge, as it was formerly for whist, the Portland is the
acknowledged authority as the arbiter of disputes and for the
promulgation of rules. There are about three hundred members of this
club, which admits guests to dine, after which they may play in a small
card-room specially reserved for their use.
Another card-playing club, which, however, admits no strangers, is the
Baldwin, in Pall Mall East, which opens at two o’clock in the afternoon.
The stakes here are very small.
Besides these admirably-conducted institutions, as Theodore Hook wrote,
there are several
“Clubs for men upon the turf (I wonder they aren’t under it);
Clubs where the winning ways of sharper folks pervert the use of
clubs,
Where _knaves_ will make subscribers cry,
‘Egad! this is the _deuce_ of clubs.’”
The latter term certainly applied to Crockford’s, which was flourishing
when the lines in question were written. Here the wily proprietor
neglected nothing to attract men of fashion of that day, most of whose
money eventually drifted into his pockets.
Well knowing the value of a first-class cuisine, he provided every sort
of culinary luxury, and took care that the suppers should be so
excellent as to make his club the resort of all sorts of men about town,
who flocked in about midnight from White’s, Brooks’s, and the Opera, to
titillate their palates and try their luck at the hazard-table
afterwards. Many who began cautiously, and risked but little, by degrees
acquired a taste for the excitement of play, and ended by staking large
sums, which they generally lost. Some few only were lucky; a certain
young blood, for instance, who one night won the price of his “troop” in
the Life Guards, purchased it, and never touched a dice-box again.
If, however, people were more or less sure to lose their money at
Crockford’s, they were equally certain of getting admirable food at a
quite nominal price, and for this reason many men of small means had
little reason to complain of the great gambling institution in St.
James’s Street.
As was once wittily said, a certain text of Scripture exactly applied to
the proprietor. This was: “He hath filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he hath sent empty away.”
Benjamin Crockford had begun life as a fishmonger near Temple Bar, but,
being of a sporting character, was accustomed to stake a few shillings
nightly at a low gaming-house kept by George Smith in King’s Place;
later, he was lucky in a turf transaction. His first venture as a
gaming-house proprietor was the purchase, for £100, of a fourth share in
a hell at No. 5, King Street. His partners here were men named Abbott,
Austin, and Holdsworth, and their operations were not above suspicion.
Afterwards Crockford, in partnership with two others, opened a French
hazard bank at 81 Piccadilly, and here again there was foul-play. The
bank cleared £200,000 in a very short time; false dice were found on the
premises and exhibited in a shop window in Bond Street for some days,
and Crockford was sued by numbers of his victims, but took care to
compromise every action before it had entered upon such an acute stage
as to entail publicity.
Crockford’s patrons were all men of rank and breeding, the utmost
decorum was observed, and society at the club was of the most pleasant
and fashionable character. There was no smoking-room, and in the summer
evenings the habitués of Crockford’s used to stand outside in the porch,
with their cigars, drinking champagne and seltzer, and looking at the
people going home from parties or the Opera. White’s, except in the
afternoons, was deserted, members naturally going across the way, where
there was a first-rate supper with wine of unexceptionable quality
provided free of cost.
Crockford was well repaid for his liberality in these matters. By the
profits of the hazard-table he realized in the course of a few years the
enormous sum of £1,200,000.
Though the days when a certain number of London clubs were merely
gaming-houses in disguise have long gone, there still exist club-men
whose principal interest is the turf, and these not infrequently are
much interested in the tape, around which they congregate when any
important race is being run, the while mysterious murmurings and vague
vaticinations prevail. Such members are generally young; with the
increase of years they become, for the most part, profoundly indifferent
to the expensive question of first, second, or third. A few ardent
enthusiasts, however, retain their taste for this form of speculation,
in spite of the long and inevitable series of disappointments which are
the lot of the vast majority of starting-price backers. Rushing wildly
into the club, they fly at once to the tape, generally dashing off to
the telephone to put more money into some bookmaker’s pocket.
The cricket enthusiast is another great patron of the tape, by which he
is either thoroughly depressed or rendered radiant, according to the
comparative failure or success of his favourite county. He is generally
a very kindly man, of innocent tastes and habits, which speaks well for
the humanizing influence of Lord’s and the Oval.
Two clubs which are much frequented by the best class of sporting men
are the comparatively old-established Raleigh (founded in 1858), in
Regent Street, and the newer Badminton (founded in 1876), in Piccadilly,
both of them well-managed institutions.
The Raleigh, which has always enjoyed a reputation for its cooking, in
its earlier days was the scene of many an amusing prank played by
younger members. All this, however, has long been a thing of the past.
A striking change in club-life is the vastly decreased consumption of
alcohol. In former days, quite a number of members used every day to
imbibe a considerable quantity of pernicious brandy and soda, the excess
of which, without doubt, sent so many of the last generation to a
premature grave. I do not by any means wish to imply that such men
became intoxicated. Thirty or forty years ago, the drinking habits, so
prevalent at the beginning of the last century, had already fallen into
great disrepute, but brandy and soda was, for some unknown reason,
considered a fairly harmless drink, and many club-men imbibed small
quantities of it all the day through without in any way showing the
slightest effect. Nevertheless, the continuous stream of alcohol
insidiously ruined many a fine constitution. Sensible men of the present
age study their health far more carefully, and the amount of what are
known as “drinks” served daily in the best West End clubs is now very
small indeed. On the other hand, “teas,” which forty years ago were
little indulged in, are taken by almost everyone.
As late as the early seventies of the past century most clubs contained
a few members of decidedly bibulous habits. These were often by courtesy
known as the “Captain” or “Major,” military titles for which a short
term of service in the auxiliary forces had scarcely qualified them.
They were, however, often original characters, whose occasional
eccentricities deserved the good-humoured toleration with which they
were viewed.
To-day, however, a very different state of affairs prevails, and even
the slightest tendency to habitual excess is seriously resented; a
decided stigma, indeed, attaches to anyone even suspected of
intemperance, whilst any open demonstration of inebriety would certainly
call forth demands for drastic measures being applied to the member
indulging in such a breach of unwritten club law.
The great diminution of drinking amongst the more prosperous classes is
nowhere more strikingly shown than by the great decrease of club
receipts derived from the sale of wine and spirits. On the other hand,
the consumption of mineral waters and other non-alcoholic beverages has
largely increased.
Within the last two decades there has been a marked tendency in West End
clubland to relax the somewhat harsh restrictions formerly in force on
Sunday, which in England is so often a day of dulness and gloom, causing
one to wonder how Longfellow could ever have described it as “the golden
clasp which binds together the volume of the week.” At some clubs it is
still a very quiet day, no billiards or cards being played by members;
but in others “Sabbatarian strictness” has been relaxed. In one or two
clubs a sort of compromise exists, and members are permitted to play
billiards without the services of a marker.
Club customs have, on the whole, changed but little. Curiously enough,
in spite of the increase of democratic ways in most West End clubs, the
custom of sitting down to dinner in evening dress has tended to increase
rather than to diminish. At the same time it must be acknowledged that
the greatest freedom is permitted in matters of costume, whilst the
smart frock-coat, once so conspicuous in clubland, has practically
disappeared. Straw hats and deerstalkers abound on club hat-pegs, and
lounge suits are worn throughout the day till dinner; top-hats and black
coats have decreased in number.
Almost unlimited freedom now prevails as to choice of dress, and
sometimes, perhaps, this licence is carried too far.
In the autumn most members of London clubs become wanderers, their
houses being given over to painters and decorators, whilst they receive
the hospitality of other clubs. A few, amongst which are the National
Liberal and the Garrick, never close; and, indeed, the membership of the
former is too large for this club to be received by any other. The
painting and decorating in clubs which never leave their habitations is
done by easy stages, one or two rooms at a time being given over to the
workmen engaged upon the renovating process which London smoke renders
so necessary.
Whilst club-life, on the whole, has become less formal and ceremonious,
a certain number of old-established clubs still maintain a grave
solemnity of tone, and such institutions generally contain a
considerable number of “permanent officials”—the class which, whatever
party may nominally be in control, really runs the country.
These men, whose lives are passed at various Government Offices, in
course of time acquire a peculiar look and manner, so entirely different
from that of ordinary humanity that the careful observer and student of
the “permanent official” is irresistibly prompted to inquire whether he
can ever have been young? The cut of his clothes, his walk, his
mannerisms, and the stately slowness of his movements, all betoken a
life passed amidst Government forms, schedules, and official papers.
Everything he does is prompted by routine, even to the ordering of a
generally well-chosen and moderate dinner.
As he is perfectly aware of the fact that he belongs to the real ruling
caste of the land, the permanent official not unnaturally exudes the
dignity which he feels is necessary to his high position. One pictures
him in a tornado or an earthquake still speaking in the same measured
tones, and briefly asking (for he is generally a man of few words) who
is responsible?
The permanent official, when married, generally has a very presentable
wife, chosen no doubt, like his dinner, with a view to not upsetting the
even tenor of his daily round. It is, however, almost impossible to
believe that he has ever been in love. If he has, any amorous
communications penned by him must, one is sure, have been carefully
copied and docketed for future reference.
Many permanent officials—but not those of the Foreign Office, who are
generally agreeable men of the world—develop into mere automata,
radiating a sort of orderly gloom.
The majority live to a good age, in latter years evolving into an even
less vivacious type—the “retired permanent official”—very solemn and
silent, not infrequently pompous, speaking scarcely at all.
A foreigner of distinction, owing to his official position, had been
made an honorary member of a well-known London club. The number of
permanent officials included in its membership was such that the club
was a veritable Palace of Silence, and the foreigner, becoming depressed
by the pervading atmosphere of gloom, one day ventured to remark to an
acquaintance, a retired official of high rank: “You seem to have little
conversation here.” “Meet me to-morrow afternoon at three o’clock in the
smoking-room, and we will have a talk,” was the solemn reply. On the
morrow the foreigner duly repaired to the appointed place and met his
friend, who, settling himself upon a comfortable sofa, took out his
watch, looked at it, and said: “I am sorry I can only give you
twenty-five minutes.” For this space of time they talked, or rather the
foreigner did, for the other uttered little but an occasional word.
Precisely as the clock marked the appointed hour the latter rose, and,
somewhat wearily saying good-bye, walked out of the building. Judge of
the foreigner’s horror the next morning when, on opening his paper, he
read that Sir —— ——, his friend of the day before, had fallen down dead
in Pall Mall, stricken by cerebral collapse! The unwonted effort of the
previous day’s conversation had been too much for the poor man. For
years past he had been used to the almost unbroken silence of the club,
which with undeviating regularity he was wont to frequent. The
foreigner, who felt that he was practically guilty of homicide, declared
he would speak no more in English clubs, and would take good care to
warn his foreign friends against any similar murderous tactics should
they come to England.
In many clubs there is a mysterious member or two, about whom nothing
seems to be known. No one can say who he is, what locality gave him
birth, or what his available means of subsistence may be. He is the
child of mystery, nor does he ever attempt to raise the veil, except
when he vaguely alludes to “his people in the North”; but whether he
means the North of England or the North of London no one whom he honours
with his acquaintance is ever able to discover. Everything about such a
man is a mystery, including the circumstances which led to his election.
Whilst eccentricity, for the most part, takes the innocuous form of
avoidance of society, there have been people who have suffered from a
disquieting love of sociability. Such a one used to make a practice of
speaking to all his fellow-members, whether he knew them or not. One
day, however, finding himself seated opposite an old gentleman who was
reading a newspaper, this individual entirely failed to obtain any
answer at all to an incessant flow of talk, so, becoming angry, he at
last kicked up his foot and sent the paper flying into its astonished
reader’s face, the result being that the aggressor very shortly
afterwards retired from the club.
It is said that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and it is
surprising how disagreeable one cantankerous man who uses his club can
make it to those around him. He is always coming upon the scene when not
wanted. If you go up to the library, you find him snoring on the sofa,
with the very book you have come in search of in his useless grasp. If
you dine accidentally at the club, your table is sure to be placed next
to his. Are you having a quiet chat with a friend, most assuredly will
this wretched being drop in and spoil the conversation. He is always
quarrelling with people, and asking you to support his complaints. Such
a man has no friends, and the list of his acquaintances is limited.
In past days old members were sometimes very severe in their comments
upon newly-elected young men of whose ways they did not approve. One of
the latter, just elected to a club, having somehow incurred the wrath of
a certain irascible character, to his amazement heard him saying: “What
an insupportable cub that fellow is! What on earth were the committee
doing to elect him! Why, I’d give him a pony not to belong now.” This
perturbed the new member, who left the club-house thinking what course
he ought to take, and, as luck would have it, met on the staircase a
member who bore the well-deserved reputation of being a thorough man of
the world. Stopping the latter, he told him of the insulting remark, and
inquired what he ought to do. “Do?” was the reply; “why, nothing at
present. After you’ve used the club for another month, you’ll probably
be offered a hundred!”
In more or less every club there are one or two solemn-looking members,
who are seldom known to speak to anyone, but spend their time in what
is, or looks like, deep study. Votaries of almost perpetual silence,
they are easily made to frown at the sound of conversation. The
favourite haunt of such as these is generally the library, which they
regard as their own domain, and where on no account must they be
disturbed.
One of this class, who in the more expansive days of his youth, twenty
years before, had had a great friend who, after leaving the University,
went out to live in the East, was one day, according to his usual wont,
reading in the library of his club, when, to his horror, he heard the
door briskly open. A robust figure, whose countenance seemed not
entirely unfamiliar, strode up to him, and, seizing his hand heartily,
shook it. “Well, old fellow,” said the intruder, “it’s many a long day
since we met. Now let’s hear what you have been doing all these years.”
Without saying a word, the ruffled student raised a warning finger, and
pointed at the placard of “Silence” on the mantelpiece.
“I was glad to see the man again,” said he afterwards; “but he had no
business to break one of our rules.”
Another kind of club-man is the irascible pedant, whose idiosyncrasies
make conversation almost impossible. He will address you; he will
lecture; he will instruct you; but he will not chat with
you—conversation with him is a monologue. He is to preach, you are to
listen. If you interrupt him, he will look at you as if sincerely pained
by your audacity; if you advance an opinion, he will promptly contradict
it; and even if you ask him a question upon a subject of which he knows
nothing, he will reply at enormous length.
It was a man of this kind who once described Niagara as a horrid place
where you couldn’t hear the sound of your own voice.
In former days many clubs included amongst their members a privileged
joker or two, to whom very great tolerance was extended. This type of
individual used to be particularly fond of exercising his propensities
at the expense of the most solemn and pompous of his fellow-members, on
whom he would play all sorts of childish tricks.
On one occasion, for instance, having got possession of an old
gentleman’s spectacles, a joker of this kind took out the glasses. When
the old man found them again, he was much concerned at not being able to
see, and exclaimed: “Why, I’ve lost my sight!” Thinking, however, that
the impediment to vision might be caused by the dirtiness of the
glasses, he then took them off to wipe them, but, not feeling anything,
became still more frightened, and cried out: “Why, what’s happened now?
I’ve lost my feeling, too!”
Some irrepressible jokers have paid for their love of fun by having to
resign their membership. One of them, whose escapades were notorious in
London twenty years ago, sitting half asleep in a certain Bohemian club,
became very much annoyed at a very red-headed waiter who kept buzzing
about his chair. The sight of the fiery locks was eventually too much
for this wild spirit, and, darting up and seizing the man, he emptied an
inkstand over his head before he could escape.
The result, of course, was expulsion from the club, besides which very
substantial compensation was rightly paid to the poor waiter, who
complained that he could not go about his work in a parti-coloured
condition, and it would take some time before the effects of the ink
disappeared.
Members who have developed undue eccentricity occasionally cause
uneasiness to their fellow-clubmen, for it is sometimes difficult
exactly to define the point where personal idiosyncrasies become
disquieting to others.
One individual, whom the writer recollects, used to enter a certain club
and call for all the back numbers which could be obtained of some weekly
paper, and then sit solemnly writing at a table surrounded by pile upon
pile of the periodical in question. After about an hour of this, he
would gather his papers together, and, striding up to the porter’s box,
would say: “Please inform the Prime Minister that, after due
consideration, I have decided that the Cabinet must resign. I will call
next Monday and leave word as to the composition of the new one.”
A very eccentric member of one club had a disquieting craze which caused
him to walk perpetually up and down stairs. The moment he came in of a
morning he started for the top floor, going upstairs with a preoccupied
air, as though he had serious business on hand. Arrived at the topmost
landing, he would strike his forehead with the absent-minded despair of
a short memory, then turn on his heel and run down again. This operation
he would repeat many times a day. The installation of a lift was said to
have been a sad blow to him; at first he regarded it with profound
distrust, until, with increasing years, he discovered its value, when he
became very objectionable to his fellow-members by his excessive use of
it.
Another original character who belonged to a well-known club used to
spend a considerable time every day contemplating himself in a huge
mirror, and bursting into explosive fits of laughter. During the whole
of this man’s membership he was supposed only to have once spoken to a
fellow-member, who, it should be added, was also rather eccentric.
A less misanthropic though highly unconventional club-man used to remain
in bed all day, getting up only about seven, when he would go to his
club to have dinner, which was really a breakfast. This habit, it was
said, had been considerably strengthened by reason of the fact that,
having once broken through it, and got up early in order to witness some
sporting event, he had on his return found himself minus his watch—a
loss which more than ever convinced him of the dangers of early rising.
Eccentric behaviour in a club once led to an amusing election incident.
A well-known character, who had sat for a certain borough for years, got
into considerable trouble at his club—a very exclusive one—owing to
having one wet day taken off his boots in the smoking-room, and sat
warming his stockinged feet before the fire. Complaints were made to the
committee, the members of which, highly indignant, at first proposed to
turn the offender out. Eventually he escaped that extreme indignity,
though he was severely reprimanded.
Shortly after this the culprit, owing to a General Election, found
himself obliged to defend his seat against an exceedingly active Radical
opponent possessed of much caustic wit.
At this time hustings still existed, and candidates exchanged raillery,
amounting occasionally to abuse.
Both candidates happened to have foreign names, and both entreated the
electors to give their votes only to a true-born Englishman.
The sitting member was especially bitter, and indulged in uncompromising
abuse of his opponent—an alien against whose exotic ways he cautioned
the electors.
“Alien indeed!” retorted the other. “Anyhow, I have never been nearly
turned out of a club for indecent exposure, like my traducer!”
“Only my boots!” roared out his opponent.
But all was in vain, and the electors, fully convinced that their old
member had appeared naked in his club, declined to re-elect him.
About two years ago West End clubs were, it is said, at their worst as
regards membership; but since then the tide seems to have turned, and a
few then in a parlous state have once more found the path of prosperity.
As a matter of fact, the competition of restaurants has improved the
cooking in clubs, and many committees have sensibly come to recognize
that an attitude of indifference to modern improvements and the changed
needs of members does not conduce to the well-being of the institutions
over which they preside.
Then, too, a number of clubs which had been tottering for years have
disappeared, with the result that a number of others have gained
members. Of late years also, the craze for founding new clubs seems
rather to have died away, whilst the fashionable “restaurant clubs,”
which for a short time seemed likely to become popular features of West
End life, have entirely ceased to exist.
The chief of these was the Amphitryon, established some twenty years ago
at 41 Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, and presided over by M. Émile Aoust,
once maître d’hôtel at Bignon’s in Paris. The object of the club was to
provide the attractions of a first-rate French restaurant, which at the
same time should be absolutely exclusive. The subscription was three
guineas, and no entrance fee was paid by the first 200 members who
joined the club, amongst whom were the then Prince of Wales and the Duke
of Connaught.
The small club-house was comfortable enough, and the cuisine left little
to grumble at. About 700 members were enrolled, and candidates kept
flocking in. Members were only allowed to introduce three guests at a
time, for the accommodation in the dining-room was very limited.
An inaugural dinner was given to the Prince of Wales, and a highly
successful evening was enjoyed by fourteen selected guests at the cost
of £120. “Kirsch glacé,” one of the _plats_ which figured in the menu,
is said to have caused some amusement, the _k_ being called a misprint
for _h_, the first letter of the name of a prominent foreign financier
then in great favour with smart society.
The chief faults of this club were its expense and its limited
accommodation. A first-class dinner was absurdly expensive, costing
close upon £10 a head. In addition to this, the little tables were, on
account of the smallness of the premises, so closely packed that
intimate conversation was next to impossible. It must be observed,
however, that there were private rooms upstairs which could be reserved
for dinner-parties, and many were given.
After a short time the Amphitryon closed its doors, and left behind it
nothing but the memory of some excellent dinners and a certain number of
heavy unpaid bills.
A somewhat similar institution was the Maison Dorée Club, at No. 38
Dover Street. The committee was an influential one, numbering amongst
its members the Dukes of St. Albans and Wellington, Lord Breadalbane,
Lord Dungarvan, Lord Castletown, Lord Camoys, Lord Lurgan, Prince Henry
of Pless, and Lord Suffield. The entrance fee was two guineas, and the
annual subscription the same sum. The cuisine was under the management
of the Maison Dorée, which was then in the last days of its existence in
Paris.
The club-house was almost too elaborately decorated. Gold, indeed, had
spread even to the area railings, and the lock of the area door itself
was adorned with heavy dull gold! The pantry-maid, it was said, had a
solid gold key to open and shut the latter for the convenience of any
favoured policeman! On the whole, the building presented a most
imposing, if rather gaudy, appearance. The decorations of the
dining-room consisted principally of pastoral scenes painted on tapestry
panels in the French style, whilst a large glass tea-house overhung the
garden, and was supposed to form a highly attractive feature.
The club, however, met with the same fate as the Amphitryon; indeed, it
fared a great deal worse, the latter for a time, at least, having been a
success, which the Maison Dorée never was. Lingering on in a moribund
state, it soon flickered out, its disappearance being followed some time
later by that of the parent restaurant in Paris, which, owing to lack of
support, ended its career, to the regret of all lovers of high-class
gastronomy.
Later on, one or two other restaurants made an attempt to introduce
“supper clubs,” where members might remain after 12.30, the closing hour
which a ridiculous Act of Parliament fixes for all licensed premises.
None of these supper clubs, however, proved successful. Quite naturally,
people soon became tired of seeing the same faces; besides, there is
nothing that amuses ladies so much as scanning and criticizing the
heterogeneous crowds which nightly flock to restaurants after the
theatre. Willis’s—for a time much frequented by the smart world—was
remodelled and spoilt in order to make room for a club of this sort,
with the result that an excellent restaurant lost its popularity, and
finally disappeared altogether.
Not very many years ago, before the registration of clubs was made
compulsory by law, there were many so-called “clubs” in London which
were little but revivals of the old night-houses and gaming-hells,
though the latter were always subject to occasional raids. Whether the
suppression of markedly Bohemian clubs generally was an entirely wise
measure seems somewhat doubtful; the mere hounding of dissipation from
one haunt to another effects no good, and in all probability the best
plan would have been to tolerate a certain number of such resorts,
provided they were orderly and did not constitute a nuisance to the
neighbourhood.
The gambling clubs, often run by very shady characters, undoubtedly did
considerable harm to numbers of pigeons, who, however, would in most
instances have lost their money even had such resorts not existed. The
best known of these so-called “clubs,” however, were started solely to
pillage some rich young dupes who formed the support of such places and
their crowd of most dubious members. Clubs of this kind often provided a
very luxurious supper free, it being well worth the while of the
proprietor to attract anyone likely to keep the place going. As a rule,
the individual in question also laid the odds during the afternoon, and
some colossal pieces of roguery were not infrequently perpetrated in
connection with turf speculation. As late as the early eighties of the
last century, young men about town were exposed to every kind of
insidious robbery. The more blatant forms of West End brigandage seem
now to have abated; but human nature does not change, and very likely
they have merely altered in form.
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