The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-29 00:00:00

THE CLUBS OF LONDON.
(From the Patrician.)
The aristocratic combination of our days is a club in
name only, if the word is to be interpreted by what it
was used to signify in its origin, and through a long
course of years up to a very recent period. Formerly
it meant a social meeting of a select few, held at stated
intervals, and at some public; tavern, whereas now it has
lost every one of these attributes. Some of these mo-
dern assemblages are exclusively confined to members of
the army and navy, others to university men, others
again to travellers, this to conservatives, and that to
reformers; but in all a certain degree of wealth, and a
certain status in society, seem to be the indispensable
conditions of admission. Then, too, each club has its
own proper mansion built at its own cost, with every
accommodation that luxury can demand, and invention,
bribed to the utmost, can supply. Without, they pre-
sent some of the best specimens of modern architecture;
within, they are palaces for velvet-shod Sybarites. It
would be too great a tax upon the time and patience of
our readers to examine each of these club-houses in de-
tail, and -this is the less necessary, as a description of
the feepres common to all will suffice to give a toler-
ably coireeknotion of any one of them.
Upon entering the hall or lobby of the club-house,
you tiis4l.sit tenanted by the hall-porter, who is seated at
a deslcZaVian assistant servant, their business being to
receives" luoisliges, answer inquiries, and take care that
no una'ntlinrised persons gain admission. It is their
clay also to, take in letters, and keep an account of the
rostagateanCl," for the farther dispatch of this part of the
ftsiwteeliterais a letter-box, into which the various
misgr9atet dropped, and which is only opened upon the
arrisid Dr,* .eerrier from the regular receiving.houses.
In Many efilisequbs two or three liveried lads are kept
in waiting; iiii)ols. for the purpose of conveying messages
j'rotn yisim4;lo any of the members. Should the stranger
wish to see his friend, there is a reception-room close to
she hall, where he may wait, provided his appearance
should seem in the eyes of the attendants to justify so
Inn respect; but the old Roman proverb holds good
here as well as elsewhere,—" Non cuivis contingit adiro
Corinthum," or, according to the fashion of your gar-
ments are the chances of your gaining admission into the
reception-Nom of a club house. Stutz, Nugee, and
Buckmaster, with their satellites, are the chief granters
of passports into English society; their certificate being
as indispensable in London as the ministerial passport is
to the traveller upon the Continent.
Various doors, opening from the vestibule, lead to the
several apartments upon the ground-floor' each of which
has its pecular object and designation. The first to be
noticed is the morning room, where the members meet
to write letters and read the journals, which in most of
the clubs are taken in with very little choice or restric-
tion, except where a strong party feeling may operate
to the exclusion of any journal. The Dispatch, for
instance, would hardly find its way into the morning
room of the Conservative ; but such exceptions are very
rare, and, in general, this matter is conducted with the
utmost liberality. Even stationery is supplied to the
members without stint or limit; and we remember to have
heard of a certain popular author, now deceased, that he
was in the habit of writing his novels at his club.
The coffee room differs in nothing but its superior
elegance, from the same apartment in any fashionable
tavern. Rows of small tables project from each side,
leaving a wide open space up the middle, for the con-
venience of passing to and fro. These are laid fur break-
faats and luncheons, from a rather late hour in the morn-
ing till four o'clock, when, in stage phrase, the scene is
struck, and the usual arrangements are made for dinner.
Here the member, who may wish to dine, is duly sup-
plied with a carte de jour, or, in plain English, with the
daily bill of fare, from which he has the same privilege
of selection that he would have at any tavern, and with
the certainty that whatever he orders will be the best of
Its kind, and cooked in the first style of cookery. The
attendants upon him are numerous and well chosen.
Firsteethere is the butler, whose duty it is to provide him
with wine ; next there is the head waiter, whose principal
business is to telte care that his assistants promptly
attend to the wants of the feasters, and duly supply
the required dishes, which are wound up from below by
s sort of side-board called " a lift," very much after the
fashion of that de,eribed by Sir Walter Scott in his
14 Peveril of the Peak," where Chiffinch gives the exqui-
site supper to Julian and his companion. Whether the
romance suggested the contrivance to the clubbists, or
the clubbists taught it to the romancer, verily this de-
ponent aith not, nor is it of much consequence. Lastly,
there is a clerk to make out the bills and keep the
various accounts, who upon some occasions had need to
be quick, both of hand and eye.
Such being the appliances, the member, who intends
dining there, fills up a form of dinner-bill w.th the dishes
that he has selected from the carte de jour. This is imme-
diately forwarded by the head-waiter in attendance to the
clerk of the kitchen, when the latter marks the established
price to each dish, adding a charge of sixpence, or in some
clubs, of a shilling, for tab!e-money, the object of
-which is to defray the expenses contingent upon bread,
butter, cheese, potatoes, table-ale, and other minor ne-
cessaries of the table. When the bill has been thus
filled up, it is sent back to the coffee-room, and the
butler adds to it his charge for whatever wine may have
been drunk, after which it is ht ded over to the coffee-
room clerk, who sums it up, and receives the amount
'tram the member. In this way ate excellent dinner, ex-
clusive of the wine, may be had for little more than
half-a-crown, a very moderate outlay, if we consider
that the meal is not o7ly of the first kind in itself, but
is served up with luxurious accompaniment. In addition
to this, the member dining at his club is infinitely more
independent than he could be at any tavern ; he has
not to buy the civility of greedy waiters, nor has he to
drink more than is agreeable to himself for the benefit of
*be house, as is for the most part expected by superior
/tavern-keepers. Then, too, he may have company, or
,be alone, at his option, an advantage beyond all price,
and which he cannot command in any public coffee-
room. To carry out this arrangement, a dining-room is
provided on the ground-floor, wherein from six to a
dozen members may dine together, precisely as they
would do at the private house of any one of them, and
with every chance of having a much better dinner with-
out the trouble or expense. The affair is thus managed
—printed firms are left in the coffee-room, to which
those who choose to join the house-dinner, as it is
called, subscribe their names, but in this case no allow-
ance is made for the Aberdeen man's privilege of
I" taking his word again ;" whoever once puts his name
to this prandatory requisition, may indeed choose whe-
ther he will, after all, dine there or not, but in any case
be must pay his share of the reckoning, which in
Teneral amounts to about seven and sixpence a head.
hese dinners, however, do not take place unless at least
six, and in some clubs eight, members have announced
their purpose of joining in them.
We now ascend the stairs, and come into the drawing-
room. This is for the most part elegantly, nay, superbly
furnisheel, but it is thinly tenanted, for what is a drawing-
room without ladies? It is their peculiar domain, and
the few cengregated in their lonely palace seem like so
many mourning widowers. Things look much better in
the library that is next to it. There coat and waistcoat
seem to be in their proper element again, and the expen-
diture, which is so lavish, is no more than what is right
and proper. A resideet librarian, is in attendance, every
sccomm alation being afforded to the reader, and we may
form a pretty correct average of the resources at his
command, when we hear that in 1R44 the books in the
esthennuto amounted to twenty thousand three hun-
dred, the accumulated result. of donation., and of a fund
set apart for that purpose. In the club just named this
stun is said to be five hundred pounds annually, exclu-
sive of the money devoted to periodicals.
A card-room stands in some houses next to the
library, but games of pure chance are forbidden under
bain of expulsion, and even at whist no stake is allowed
eyond half-guinea points.

- We must now ascend to the third story, where we
shall find one billiard room, if not more, attended by a
marker. For this, as well as for cards, a separate charge
Is made, upon the very obvious and rational ground that
it would be unfair to make the non-player pay for the
extra expenses entailed by this part of the establish-
ment. Twelve of the clubs allow smoking-rooms, which
are, sae they ought to be, the worst-looking part of the
whole building.
So complicated a machine as a club of this kind, it
sill be easily supposed, must require some management
to keep it in order and motion. For this purpose it
is usual to confide the direction of affairs to a com-
mittee of thirty or forty, as the case may be, selected
from the general body. Of these from three to eight
form a quorum, which meets once a week to regulate
matters of finance, to appoint tradespeople, to engage or
dismiss servants, to inquire into and redress any com-
plaints that maybe made by members, and to superintend
all new elections. The general committee has duties
scarcely less onerous ; it has to prepare the annual re-
ports anti statements of account, which are afterwards
printed fir the satisfaction of Arose belonging to the
club, who may like to look into affairs. But these duties
have been found too numerous and too heavy for any
one set of men, acting in a body, to discharge them.
The general committee therefore divides itself into
various sub-committees, each having its own especial
business to attend to. Thus the " house-
committee " takes upon itself the charge of
household affairs ; the " book committee" manages
the library, all works being approved by it before
they can be admitted, and from the came source must
emanate the orders for their purchase ; the " wine
committee" choose the wines, superintends the cellarege,
and directs The distribution at table ; it is composed of
sage and experienced bibbeie, men well versed in all
vinous mysteides, and as little liable to be imposed upon
in these grave matters, as any one of the tasters at the
leonden Dock's. In those cubs which have billiard-
SOems—anti this is universally the case—there is also a
billiard committee, consisting of those who are most
skilful in the mysteries of the game. A secretary is
appointed to assist these various boards, one of his
duties being to eor,duct, the official correspondence of
the club. The minor details are carried On by
servants, the chief of whom is the " house steward,"
Ind be regulates the rest of the dome ties ; in some
clubs he is helped by a " superintendent," wh,, iu
that case has the care of the droving-room floor, it being
his business to see that the writing and reading-rooms are
properly supplied with stationery. The chief cook is
generally a foreignee, of eminence in the culinary art,
and he hee fir helps one m .le assistant and a troop of
ititchen-reaids. Next to him most be ranked the house-

keeper, who has under her superintendence all the in-
'risible females of the establishment, respectively offici-
sting as hotisemaids, a needle-woman, and a still- room
raid, whose duty it is to make the tea and coffee. Taking
the Reform Club and the Garrick, with the Naval Club,
two extreme. we shall find that the number of domestics

'tries from fif.y--ix to eleven, but most of these
establishments sob,cribe to soine hospital, either in
money or in kind—such as old linen, &c.—that their
Oervants may by received into them in cases of chronic
Or prolonged diseases. Where the ailment is of u tem-
porary nature, a medical man, in the pay of the club,
attends, and also supplies medicines. The broken victuals
re distributed to the pc.3or, under the direction of the