The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-24
London Clubs.

Clubs are essentially English. Though
every continental city in Europe has initiated
their institution, yet the English club still re-
mains SuS generSs. The clubs and circles in
Paris, in Vienna, in st. Petersburg, aud,
above all, those wretched transplantations
called English and American clubs which
flourish in every city in Europe, are as differ
ent from their Pall-Mall namesakes as the
worship of Bacchus is from total abstinence.
On the continent the cafe takes the real place
of the club; it is there that men eat, drink,
smoke, and read the papers; while those
who belong to clubs have generally some
claim to wealth or distinction, and use them
as a fashionable lounge where bets are made
in the dav time, and high play is the amuse-
ment of the evening. The last light in which
Frenchman, Austrian, or Russian views his
club is that of a home. And here lies the
great difference between club life abroad and
club life in England. To an Englishmen, if
he is q bachelor, his club is his home. It is
there that he sees his friends, writes his let
ters, dimes, and spends the greater part of the
day. British respectability, in its most
severe moments, can wish for no more de-
corous haunt for husbands and sons to enter
and take up their abode. AS long as men are
within the walls of their club they have to con-
duct themselves as gentlemen. Should
member behave himself in an Objectionable
manner, and to the annoyance of his fellows,
most assuredly he will be reprimanded by
the secretary, or if his offense be very repre-
hensible, be requested by the committee to
take his name off the books.
Since Thackeray in his MiScellGnseS took
young Brown by the hand and showed him
over his splendid club, the new clubs that
have been started are legion. The host of
names down on the books of the Carlton, the
Travellers, the Athen@um, the Oxford and
Cambridge, the University, the "Rag," the
social exclusiveness of Boobies, Brooks,
Arthurs, Whites, ETC., and the long time that
men had to wait before they could enter any
of the old London clubs caused it to be a
matter of absolute necessity that new clubs
should come into existence, unless Young
England was to be for the best part
of his life absolutely clubless. Men were
tired of hearing that the Athen@um or the
Travellers, in say 1860, were electing the
candidates put down in their books in 1915;
hence committees of influential men were
formed, and, in addition to the older clubs,
we have now the Junior Carlton (the most
successful of all the new cIubs), the Naval and
Military, the New University, the Thatched
House, the Marlborough (for a very exclusive
coterie), the Gridiron, the Junior Atheneum,
the Albemarle, the Whitehall, and various
small military clubs.
London clubs may be divided into four
great clssses-the social clubs, the political
clubs, clubs requiring special qualifications,
and the professional clubs The social clubs
are the Travellers, Boobies, Arthur's, the
Marlborough, the Windham, the Union, the
Raleigh, Junior Athen@um, Gridiron,
Thatched House, etc. The first four are
among the most exclusive in town. The po-
litical clubs for Tories and Conservatives are
Whites, the Carlton, Junior Carlton, and the
Conservative; for Wings and Radicals,
Brooks and the Reform. The professional
clubs are the United Service, Junior United
Service, Army and Navy, and Naval and
Military for officers in the army and
navy and militia; the st. James
for diplomatists and civil servants; the Athe-
n@um for bishops, judges, and distinguished
artists and men of letters; the Garrick for
actors, journalists, artists, and men of letters
(in these two last there is good sprinkling
of men-about-town); and the Whitehall for
engineers. The clubs requiring specific
qualifications are the Guards, for officers in
the Household Brigade only; the Oxford and
Cambridge, the University and the New Uni
versity, as their names imply, for Varsity
men; and the East India and Oriental Clubs
for Indian officers, civil servants and mer-
chants For card playing, the Portland and
the Arlington. For billiards and the best
night club in London, Pratt's. IinsLey'S
Magazine.