The Express.
London, England, 1863-10-19 00:00:00

WORKING MEN'S CLUBS.

Fume describing the general constitution and
objects of Working Men's Clubs, we have suspected
several of those established in the metropolis, and
now proceed to give some account of their charac-
ter and practical results.
Our first visit was to the Workmen's Hall, Port-
ked-eo&d, Notting-hill This institution is situ-
ated in the half formed, somewhat wild neighbour-
hood called, by a strange topographical license,
"the Kensington Potteries." The locality is one
of the extreme western outskirts of London, lying
between the Notting-bill road and Kensall-green.
The greater part of the ground was open
fields within the memory of those who are still
youug, but a thickly populated though straggling
town has grown up since the formation of the
Great Western Railway, and, though there are
some go, d squares and crescenta not far off the streets
for the most part are inhabited by bumble working-
class people. lu the midst of badly-lighted roads
and half-formed thoroughfares, where you must look
sharp after dark lest you g t engulfed in morasses
of mud, stands the Hall—a plain brick building,
completed, though not originally designed, for its
present purpose. The house was opened on the
Ist of April, 1861. Mr. Samuel Gurney advanced
the neoemary funds (1,1201.) at 5 per cent. interest,
and several gentlemen, both lay and clerical, who,
concern themselves in the welfare of their less far-
innate brethren, have given the Hall very hearty
and efficient support. The yearly expenses are
now about 1501., though in the first year they
amounted to 1831. As originally conducted,
the members were expected to pay a
weekly subscription of twopence, for which
they obtained the advantages of admission to
the coffee room, where refreshments are to be had
at moderate prices ; to the reading room, with its
Mock of daily and weekly papers, magazines, &c. ;
to the library, wheuoe books are lent out at one
peony for fourteen days, and from which 533
volumes were issued in the first year ; to the amuse-
ments of draughts, chess, dominoes, &c. ; to the
smoking room ; and to the reading, writing, and
arithmetic classes. Turkish baths were at one time
*Abetted to the building, but were not much
patronised, and are sow abandoned. The subscrip-
ties system has been found not to answer, and it
has accordingly been relinquished, except in con-
111M00 with the reading room. It is found that the
business dune in refreshments, and the payments
of various societies for the accommodation of meet-
ing in the rooms of the hall, bring more revenue to
the managers than the plan hitherto followed.
Daring the first nine months the expenditure
eaceeded the income ; but we are informed that
aims the alteration the prospects of the institution
becoming self-supporting have considerably im-
proved. It is obvious, however, that, as matters now
stand, the Hall is not so much • club as a club-
Isone—a pleas which any society can rent for a
night, or a series of nights, or a permanency—a
part business, part philanthropic speculation, not
as effort by working men themselves to meet a
aerial want of their own in their own way. That
the project may do good among the thoughtless
and vicious we do not doubt, but it fails to fulfil
the idea of a club, nor is it likely, we think, to do
as much service as if it were formed on more easy
and social principles. It is hardly social at all, in
the sense of good fellowship, but rather a centre of
peopegandisui—a place where the working man
lade unused in a state of tutelage, which of all
Chimp he abhors. The Hall, in fact, is specially de-
voted to the diffusion of teetotal principles, and the
dissemination of religious tracts for the conversion of
the infidel. This is not exactly the task which a
working man's institution should set itself. Many
agencies already exist for the spread of temperance
doctrines and of religious knowledge. What is now
wasted is something which in the first place ahall
aseidy the natural desire of the labourer and the
artisan for cheerful companionship, apart from
debatable matters of opinion, and thew combat the
peblic-house on its own ground; and which, secondly,
shall offer him facilitim, such as he can now only
obtain at taverns, for transacting the business of
friendly and benefit societies. -To this end, an
entire absence of the sectarian spirit and a studious
mittration of the habits of self-government are in
the highest degree necessary. The Kensington
Potteries Workmen's Hall, however, goes upon
another principle. It is a league of various re-
formatory and morally educational bodies, and
ischidesi a District Visiting Society, • Tem-
perance Society, a Band of Hope, a Bible
Case, a Young Men's Christian Association,
and various societies for mutual aid and instruction.
• harmonic club, singing classes, and occasional
lectures are also included in the plan. The pro.
feesedly religious character of the hall was made
manifest to us directly we entered the reading-room
a few evenings ago. Three youths were warmly
bat very amicably discussing the subject of pro-
phecy, with reference to Dr. Cumming s belief that
the destruction of the world is totake plane in 1886.
IA the wall was pasted a placard, set forth in red
and black ink, after the manner of a playbill, wherein
we were informed that "at the Theatre of the
Universe, on the Eve of Time, will be performed
Elhe Great Assize, or Day of Judgment," of which
"the scenery, now actually preparing, will not
sake surpass everything that hasyet been seen, but
will infinitely exceed the utmost stretch of human
eeneeption • ' and so on throughout, with a
Nile= parody of theatrical language, even
to the prices of ad mission to the pit
and gallery. This astounding production (which
is attributed to the Rev. Rowland Hill) is
on sale at " the bar" of the ball for a penny each
eemy, and seems to meet with customers ; though,
seeking allowance for difference of intention, it
appears to us little better than that exploit of a
reprobate Scotch lord, about seventy years ago,
who went with his drunken companions at mid-
niskt into a churchyard, and rehearsed the " Last
Ray" amongst the tombstones. The Workmen's
Nell of the Kensington Potteries may poems its
ewe sphere of usefulness, and the managers take
reedit to themselves for having, by their exertions
among the poor of the surrounding district, do-
baled the attempt of two neighbouring houses of
eneertainment to obtain spirit licenses. But the
venialness is not such as we specially desiderata in
eemnexion with working men's clubs.
Much the same observations apply to the Stor-
miest-house Working Men's Association, also at
fatting-hill—an institution opened in 1853, and
smeaged by a committee of the Local Philanthropic
Seekity and Ward Association. This can hardly be
salted a club at all ; it is rather a place for religious
trainius, combined with occasional amusement in
the shape of concerts. Smoking is prohibited,
end there appears to be no provision for mere re-
eseatiou, such as games of chance or skill. The
semsber of members has fluctuated very considerably,
and it is generally felt that the rules are too
metrictive, and the rate of subscription too high—
via' 3d. weekly, or 2s. 6d. a
_quarter. Neither for
this nor for the Potteries Hall can we anticipate
more than a sectional influence.

The Soho Club, situated in Crown-street, Soho,
rllk Giles's, is conducted upon totally different prin-
eiuies, and makes some Approach, in • rude and
bumble way, to the clubs of the more educated
criers. Turning down from Oxford-street, oppo-
site the end of Tottenham-court-road, we soon find
~selves before a corner house, whose dusky old
Wok walls are adorned with flaring posters, stuck
there by various advertisers, in naiordance with a
issiiion which threatens to turn half the mural
surface of London into means of publicity for
Oestrimil managers and puling tradesmen. A
wry unpretending door gives admission into an
iwkwally plain, workaday-Woking house. Every-
thing, indeed, is in the rough—perhaps too much
so, for one of the attractions of the public-house is
brigbt, cheerful, and really ornamental cha-
rades ; and, if the oppoeition club-house is to have
a fair chance, it must not be dull and shabby.
At the Soho Club the room originally de-
signed for a sinukiutroom is • mere brick
sled, whitewashed, provided with one or
two unprotected jets of gas, and roofed by a sky-
light, which the boys of the neighbourhood have
pelted with stones and broken in several places. This
eatimilding (the dimer.aions of which are but small)
ie any we uodentanii, to be used as a bath room,
and the skylight is to be shisliled externally with
mbework upbeat the aismalta of the juvenile