The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-09-28
CLUB LIFE TRIALS.
HOW EVOLUTION HAS PLAYED WITH
THIS INSTITUTION.
With n Multitude of Clubs to Choose
from the Average Man Is Unsatisfed.
Some Suggestions for the Afflicted
Ones-How to Abash the Clubs Bore.

Some Suggestions for the Afflicted
Ones--How to Abash the Clubs Bore.
If, as Addison opines, clubs are natural
and necessary offshoot of mans gregari-
Gus and social nature, the gregarious and
social Englishman of the present day in
surveying the eXuberant crop Of clubs
which have sprung up around him may
feel that he has honestly done his duty by
nature and necessity. And yet he is not
happy. With practically unlimited
choice before him he is, or affects to be,
unable to choose satisfactorily. To him
the list of clubs Is as the bundle of hay
and the club of his hearts desire as the
needle
johnson, according to Boswell, defined a
club as an assembly of good fellows meet
ing under certain conditions. How far the
modern club has departed from the simple
ideal is shown significantly by an adver-
tisement which appeared a few months
ago in u contemporary, inviting gentlemen
of position and means to discuss the forma-
tion of a first class club, the chief feature
of which should be "the absolute quiet
and restfulness so essential to this age of
high pressure" If this world weary ad-
vertiser had lived $50 years ago he might
have found his desired haven in the Hum
drum club, which seems to have been
"made up of very honest gentlemen of
peaceable dispositions that used to sit to-
gether, smoke their pipes and say nothing
till midnight"
For many reasons the goodfellowship
and camaraderie of the earlier clubs have
disappeared A man may have many
friends in his club, but as rule he does
not make them there. In professional or
commercial intercourse the bonds of rigid
etiquette are easily relaxed. By general
understanding every barrister is entitled
to he "hail fellow, well met" with any
other barrister, in virtue of their common
calling; and the same principle prevails
TO greater or less degree in other walks
of life. But in most clubs this easy license
is at best but sparingly recognized, and
while fellow member has no claim upon
ones friendliness, he is at any rate pos
sibe object of dislike.
Nor is this dislike in all cases illegiti-
mate, for the club malefactor is nuisance
which is all the more irritating from being
so peculiarly difficult to deal with. Take
for instance the club snorer, whose sins
have lately been held up to eXecration in
the press. Would he be permitted to per-
petrate this outrage in his wife's drawing
room? Not he. But in his club, where he
is beyond the jurisdiction of domestic dis
cipline, he is too often able to offend with
impunity, owing to the reluctance of his
fellow members to take action against
him. The club freebooter" as CORE
spondent delicately termed him-the man
who appropriates coats, sticks and UNI
brellas which do not belong to him-is
thief pure and simple, and ought rather
to be dealt with by the laws of his country
than by those of his club. But, confining
ourselves to minor offenses, the man who
sits on heap of papers, the man who is
perpetually nagging at the club servants
(assuredly the best class of servants in the
world, the man who secretes the popular
novel and others of the same kind--these
are the men who strike at the roots of that
goodfellowship which, in theory at any
rate, ought to prevail in club
Is it inhuman to include among such Of
tenders another class the invalids? Few
men would venture into private society
while suffering from any disorder which
made them unpleasant company for their
friends, but how seldom is like considera-
tion extended to their clubsl The throat
which is cleared every half minute like
thunderburst with the same easy uncon-
cern as if the sufferer were in church, the
cough which suggests aceldama, the cold
which sneeZes and snuffles with an irritat-
ing persistence might surely with wisdom
and advantage be allowed to run through
their acute stage in domestic privacy The
matter is Of course one which cannot be
settled by rule and precept. 1t is purely
question of good taste and good feeling, on
which every man must be law to'him-
self Possibly the difficulty might be over
come by the institution of special clubs,
such as the Snoring club, the Cod-in.the-
Head club, and so forth, to meet the pecul-
lar needs of these unfortunates, though it
is to be feared that such associations would
be born with the seeds of their own disso-
luton within them like the Duelists' club
in the time of Charles H. OF this it is re-
corded that it consisted only of men of
honor, but did not continue long, most Of
its members "being put to the sword or
hanged little after its institution"
In some Of the earlier clubs an attempt
was made to control the frank simplicity
of the manners of the day by stringent
regulations. Thus it was rule of the
Twopenny club that if any member swore
or cursed, his neighbor might give him
kick on the shins. This penalty seems
crude, and can hardly have been easy to
enforce in an age when the English tenn
per was at least as unruly as at the present
day. Another regulation provided that if
any member tell stories which are not
true, "he shall forfeit for every third lie a
halfpenny." This certainly strikes one as
a ridiculously low tariff, which made false
hood luxury within the reach of the
humblest income. Frugality was pro-
NOTED by rule that if member brought
his wife to the club he should pay
for whatever shedrank and smoked, which
indeed seems reasonable, as well as being
calculated to discourage some of the scan
dals which Lady Jeune deplores. In some