Arizona weekly citizen., 1892-10-22
CLUB SERVANTS.
Thousands of Them Employed in
 New York City.
Social Organizations Which Employ an Army of People to Attend to Their
 Various wants-The Lead ing Clubs.
J. c. HAYDEN, Observer Weather Bureau.

If the servants and employees of any
 one of the big clubs in this town were
 marched in dress parade the array
 would be a decidedly imposing one. and
 the size of the small army would sur
 prise anybody who had not had occasion
 to become familiar with the workings
 of the larger New York clubs. says the
 New York World. The Manhattan Attn
 letic club probably heads the list of local
 clubs-or American clubs. for that mat
 ter-in the number of people who wear
 its livery. or at least draw money from
 its treasury for attending to the wants
 of it's members. More than two hun
 dred men, women and boys are regular
 ly employed in one capacity or another
 in the big Manhattan Athletic club
 house, and at times the attaches of the
 club house number as high as two hun
 dred and fifty. This small army com
 prises door men, hall boys, walters, bar
 tenders, attendants at the rifle range,
 shooting gallery, baths and other de-
 partments, elevator boys, boOkkeepers,
 accountants, engineers. iremen. cham
 bermaids, cooks, washerwomen and ScrubwOmen.
 Humble though some of these em- ployes are, it costs money to secure their more or less professional services for the club, and the salary list is be- tween fifteen hundred dollars and two thousand dollars a week.
 The Manhattan club. which probably comes next in the length of its salary list, employs between one hundred and forty five and one hundred and fifty, and pays them something over one thousand dol lars a week for attending to the club house and the wants of the men who keep it a<going. The present Manhat- tan Athletic club house is comparatively a new thing. and naturally many, if not most, of its attaches are comparatively newcomers. But at the Manhattan club, which is one of the old club insti- tutions of the town, many of the help have grown gray in the service. The venerable female housekeeper, for in- stance, has put in a couple of decades keeping things in order for the Man hattanites, and dozen other employees have been with the club for decade or more. There is one detachment of the Manhattan clubs employees whose very existence is probably unknown to nine tenths of the clubs members. Every one of this detachment is of the fem mine gender, and every one is likewise of the color of the ace of spades. The women in question are the hOuseclean- CTS, and put in their appearance at the clubhouse about sunrise, make things | lively for a couple of hours, and disap- pear before the earliest member of the | club has shaken off the embrace of Nor l pheus.
 The Union league also has a big staff | of employees, as may be imagined from the fact that it spends nearly ten thou and dollars every year in providing hem with livery. The New York Ath- etic is another club which does a arge business inthe way of employees; likewise the Union club, the New York Tub, the Lawyers club, and half dog n other clubs on the same order At most of these clubs employees of a dozen r more years standing may still.be cen, and, in fact at any of the first lass clubs it is the rule to retain the QOrmen, so long as they behave them elves, in order to have at least couple ! f servants who are familiar with the aces of all the members. The Univcrsi- y club, of course. has an immense etinue of servants. but. as the rule here seems to be to have ''shake-up' nee month or SO. not more than half | dozen Old-time attaches of the club are D be seen at the club house on Madison venue nowadays.
 At the really first-class clubs an en- eavOr is made to secure as servants nly serving people who have had ex- erience in private families or other clubs, but at some of the ubs almost everybody who responds } the house committees advertise Ient is taken on faith and given a nance to don the club livery. The awyers' club is a notable exception to ubs of the last named order. the at ches of that institution being particu- rly well trained and disciplined AL - Ost every one of them has seen service
 the better class of New York fami- as and every one of them thoroughly lderstands his place. There is rarely
 never any complaint of incivility or elk Of attention on the part of the rvants of the Lawyers club, and that ct, perhaps, as much as anything SC, accounts for the extreme populari-
 of the club. Altogether probably ght thousand or ten thousand people farfl low nrrnf ,l,. ( 4 l.. |