The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1873-02-10
"WHTTE'S..
The Most Aristocratic Of the English
Clubs.

'WHITE'S.s
The Most Aristocratic of the English
Clubs.
Charles E. Pascoe, writing in the
Boston Commercial Bulletin of Sat
urday, thus describes the famous
Whites Club: There is one club in
London which enjoyed rather an
evil reputation in its early history,
but which now ranks first among
the best in that native land of clubs.
A stranger passing through st.
James Street would be struck with
the appearance of one house on the
left-hand side of Pail Mall, nearly at
the top as you turn into Piccadilly.
1t it singular, for it stands alone in
the midst of buildings of far greater
pretentions. The windows of this
particular house are those called bow
windows, supported OH either side
by fiuted Corinthian columns, and
over the drawing room or upper
floors are medallions of the -Four
Seasons "-classic compositions by
Wyatt. This club house-for it so
happens that it is One-is the cele-
brated White's," once Whites
Chocolate House, where many years
ago dashing highmen have slipped
their chocolate before proceeding to
exercise the more technical branch
of their profession on Bagshot Heath;
notorious some years later on for the
excessive indulgence of its frequent
ers in the most reckless play, and of
which Swift, in an essay OH "Mod-
ern Education" writes: 81 have
heard that the late Earl OF Oxford,
in the time of his ministry, never
passed by Whites Chocolate House
(the common rendezvous of infa-
nous sharpers and noble cullies)
without bestowing Il curse upon that
famous academy as the bane of half
the English nobility"
THE MEMBERS.
Although the club was formerly
composed of the High Tory party,
and indeed now numbers amongst its
members many leading Conserva-
tives, it has long ceased to be a politi-
cal club; it is rather social society
of gentlemen protesting great ex-
clusiveness. At one time, it was
said-in the days, perhaps, when
Colley Cibber and the Great Lord
Chesterfield chatted with the famous
Duke of Devonshire i'll the bow
windOw-that q man with good
coat on his back, and an unlimited
supply of money, could be secure of
his election at "Whites;" now no.
bleman with any amount Of money
at his control, and an unlimited
credit with his tailor, would have to
show some more sterling qualifica-
tons than these why he should even
be proposed as member. Prince
Christian, whose marriage with the
Princess Helena, of Great Britain,
was peculiarly distasteful to a great
majority of the English nobility,
was proposed few years ago by no
less person than the Prince of
Wales, and seconded by the popular
Prince of Teck, yet he failed to Sc
cure his election to White's," for
reasons which at that time threaten
ed to place him in II yet more equiv
ocal position as a member of the
royal family of Great Britain-a
vast change since the times of HOr-
ace Walpole, and the morality which
prevailed at Whites" then.
Here is an illustration WalpOle
to Mann, September l, 1850. ''They
have put in the papers good story
made Oh Whites 4 man dropped
down dead at the Climb and was car
ried in. The Club Immediately
made bets whether he was dead or
not, and, when they were going to
bleed him, the wagerers for his
death interposed, and said it would
effect the fairness of the bet"