Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-03-30
NEW YORK CLUB GOSSIP.
A Chicago View of Gotham in Fashion
able Circles.

Nelo Yori5 Letter.
There is great deal of nonsense writ.
ten about New York clubs. They are BY
no means the institutions they are repre-
scented to be. The majority of them are
we'll organized, comfortable and agreea-
bic haunts, where men of good social
standing meet quietly at night for game
of billiards or chat. The talk about the
orgies and wild, harum-scarum suppers
in the best clubs in New York is all bOsh.
In the first place the dining rooms are
usually closed at O'Clock, and nothing
but plain supper can be had after
O'Clock unless especially ordered. At the
Union League everything is character
lied by the strictest fOrmality. The club
is divided into chques. Its membership
list is so large that the cOngenial ones form
little circles Of their own and k, ep
aloOt from the other circles. Thus the
1900 men who go to make up the member
snip are separated into sets that are some
times antagOnistic. The club house,
which is a large, huge, barn-like strUc-
ture, INTELLECTUALLY ugly but handsomely
furnished, serves as a meeting place for
the different cliques. On state occasions
the club gives dinners al which there is
sure to be large attendance. The young
men Of the club are snubbed, and there is
little good feeling or jollity among the
members at large If one succeeds in get
ting into any of the more popular cliQues,
he is well fixed and sure of a comfortable
time. The Union League has a superb
record, is free from scandal and has con-
siderable wealth as club. There are so
many men waiting to get in that the man
who puts his name down will have to wait
SIX years before he&Omes up to be voted
upon. Next to it in fame comes the Union
Club. A man who goes down on the liSL
here will have to wait about four years.
The Union is a curious club. 1t was
the scene of the Bennett-May alteration,
the LOubat- Turnbull scandal and the
Gerhard Hunter episode, and has been in
no end of rows. Among its members are
nearly all of the mllliOnaires, great
many hOrsemen and Wall street flyers,
with sprlnkling of merchants and bank
ers. The god of the Union is money.
They worship it Loyalty. Its members are
not distinguished in society for their fine
manners or their good breeding, but all
the actresses know them and they can
talk horse with the fellows of the London
Jockey Club. 1t is said that a Union
Club man can be recognized in the street
by his Oyer-ted appearance, tlorid face and
ultra-fashionable attire. 1t is the rich
club of New York. 4 number of the
younger men of the Union, who found
they could make no Roadway among the
OAtl bbN . oC0GuCNl III al BOtS anu OI2dulLtu
the knickerbocker Club. This is the
home of snObs. 1t would be
no eXaggeratiOn to say that the
knickerbOcker is the most caddish
club in existence. It's members
are composed of young society and club
men who are noted for their abject wor-
ship Of everything that is English. They
carry this to such an extent that it is al
most impossible to understand what they
o. flhaxr email
posed OF Yankee idiOms with a cockneY
accent, wear the single eyeglass, patron
ize everybody, and are insutferably con-
ceited. A story is told that these infatu-
ated young idiots play whist for a shilling
and conduct all their deals at cards IN
pounds, shillings and pence. The steward
of the club occupies the post of money
changer. As the Knickerbocker grew
from the Union, so the Calumet grew from
the KnickerbOcker. The little dudes and
enthusiasts who could not stand the eX-
pense and style of the knickerbOcker
formed themselves into a body and called
themselves the Calumet, which is now the
rival to the KnickerbOcker. Of the other
clubs, the Century is the most wholly
respectable. Its members are old lit
erateurs, merchants and public men,
who enjoy comfortable menus and
quiet house. They are in a side
street and the servants are middle
aged, deft and quiet. The cuisine is adj
mirable, the management well-nigh per-
feet and the regulations of the strictest
possible sort There are never any scan
dals in the Century. The University Club
is composed of men who have been
graduated from reputable colleges, with
out much regard for their social position.
1t has, therefore, a heterogeneous men,
bership list. The club has grown so
rapidly within a few years that it is
obliged to abandon its house at Fifth
avenue and Thirty-fith street and move
down opposite the Madison Square Gar
den, in the house formerly occupied by
the Union League and then by the Turf.
The Lambs is known as the actors club,
but in reality its membership is made up
of Wall street brokers and many sorts Of
men-about-tOwn. The majority of actors
join the Lambs as a matter of course, and
they are never backward with their SER
vices when the club gives entertainments,
but the assertion that the Lambs is an
actors club is absurd. l doubt if two
actors can be found there on a single day,
when there are always three or four score
of the brokers and their friends. Billy
Florence is the Shepherd of the Lambs.