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 features common to all will suffice to give a toler-
ably correct notion of any one of them.
Upon entering the hall or lobby of the club-house,
you find it tenanted by the hall-porter, who is seated at
a desk, and an assistant servant, their business being to
receive messages, answer inquiries, and take care that
no unauthorised persons gain admission. It is their
duty also to take in letters, and keep an account of the
postage; and, for the farther dispatch of this part of the
business, there is a letter-box, into which the various
missives are dropped, and which is only opened upon the
arrival of the carrier from the regular receiving-houses.
In many of the clubs two or three liveried lads are kept
in waiting, chiefly for the purpose of conveying messages
from visitors to any of the members. Should the stranger
wish to see his friend, there is a reception-room close to
the hall, where he may wait, provided his appearance
should seem in the eyes of the attendants to justify so
muds respect; but the old Roman proverb holds good
here as well as elsewhere,—" Non cuivis contingit adire
Corinthum," or, according to the fashion of your gar-
ments are the chances of your gaining admission into the
reception-room of a club house. Stulz, 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 iu 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 for break-
fasts 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 four, 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.
First, there is the butler, whose duty it is to provide him
with wine ; next there is the head waiter, whose principal
business is to take care that his assistants promptly
attend to the wants of the feasters, anti duly supply
the required dishes, which are wound up from below by
a sort of side-board called " a lift," very much after the
fashion of that described by Sir Walter Scott in his
" Pevcril 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 up ,n 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 with the dishes
that ho 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 table-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 htlided over to the coffee-
room clerk, who sums it up, and receives the amount
from the member. In this way an 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 or.ly 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
the house, as is for the most part expected by superior
tavern -keepers. Then, too, he may have company, or
be atone, 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 forms 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
" 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
he must pay his share of the reckoning, which in
general amounts to about seven and sixpence a head.
These 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
furnished, but it is thinly tenanted, for what is a drawing-
room without ladies? It is their peculiar domain, and
the few congregated 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 resident librarian is in attendance, every
accommodation being afforded to the reader, and we may
form a pretty correct average of the resources at his
command, when we hear that in 1844 the books in the
Athenaeum amounted to twenty thousand three hun-
dred, the accumulated result of donations, and of a fund
set apart for that purpose. In the club just named this
sum 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
pain of expulsion, and even at whist no stake is allowed
beyond 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, as they ought to be, the worst-looking part of the

whole building.
So complicated a machine as a club of this kind, it
will 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 may be 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 and statements of accoupt, which are afterwards
printed for the satisfaction of Otiose belonging to the
elab, 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 same source must
emanate the orders for their purchase ; the " wine
committee" choose the wines, superintends the cellarage,
and directs the distribution at table ; it is composed of
sage and experienced bibbers, men well versed in all
vinous mysteries, and as little liable to be imposed upon
in these grave matters, as any one of the tasters at the
London Docks. In those clubs which have billiard.
rooms—and 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 conduct the official correspondence of
the club. The minor details are carried on by
servants, the chief of whom is the " house steward, '
and he regulates the rest of the domestics ; in some
clubs he i; helped by a " superintendent," who in
that case lels the care of the drawing 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 foreigner, of eminence in the culinary art,
and he has for helps one male assistant and a troop of
kitchen-maids. Next to him must be ranked the house-
keeper, who has under her superintendence all the in-
♦isible females of the establishment, respectively oftici-
siting as housemaids, a needle-woman, and a still• room
=aid, whose duty it is to make the tea and coffee. Taking
the Reform Club and the Garrick, with the Naval Club,
two extremes, we shall find that the number of domestics
varies from fifty-six to eleven, but most of these
establishments subscribe to some hospital, either in
money or in kind—such as old linen, &c.—that their

perfants may by received into them in cases of chronic
or prolonged diseases. Where the ailment is of a tem-
porary nature, a medical man, in the pay of the club,
:attendg, and also supplies medicines. The broken victuals
Are distributed to the poor, under the direction of the