The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-03
KING GEORGE STILL KEEPS UP H|SSTAbLE Finds Time to Keep Up Out
 side Interests CLUBS IN DIFFICULTY Some of London's Most Famous Clubs Will Be Forced to Close Their Doors-Night Clubs Not Popu-
 lar With Lord Kitchener
CLUBS IN DIFFICULTY
By PHILLIP EVERETT


 London, February 27.-tSpecial.)- srito of the manifold new duties which the war has imposed upon him, King George finds time to look after many details connected with things in which he is personally interested. He has thus never lost sight of his racing stud, which is being maintained in splendid form, all though the King Is not attending any races or running any horses during the war.
 That he intends to do so more than ever when the war is over is evident from the fact that he recently rented Lord Ellesmore's stud farm, the 'Eger- ton" which is much nearer Newmarket tban wolferton stud farm, near Sandring- ham. where the King hitherto kept his horses.
 Queen Mary is as strongly opposed to racing as ever, but has evidently given up further attempt to make the King abandon this form of sport.
 Clubs In Difficulty
 Unless something happens very soon to put an end to the war several of Lon don's most famous clubs will probably be forced to close their doors. as their list of members is steadily dwindling and with the daily attendance growing smaller, many of them have already been forced to put up their prices for meals. This, for instance, is the case with both the Carlton and the Constitutional.
 The distress of the exclusive clubs Is partly, but also only partly due to the de- sire to economize, but principally perhaps to the fact that members find little use for places where nothing stronger than lemonade or ginger ale is to be had after 10 at night and from where you have to grope your way home in darkness if you are not fortunate enough to possess a private motor car.
 The night clubs on the other hand are doing excellent business though it is hardly appropriate to call them night clubs any more, when their busiest hours are between four and seven in the after noon.
 If you enter the Murray club, for in- stance. any afternoon during these hours, formerly devoted to the slipping of insipid tea, you will find the ballroom illumi- mated and the polished floor crowded with dancers while all around the prettiest girls in London are seated at little tables chatting with men In khaki. The more civilian is persistently overlooked and might as well be air.
 The war office, I am informed. feels rather unfriendly toward these night clubs, because they do not consider that they are the best training place for men who have plenty of hard work ahead of them at the front. and possibly also be- cause 1t is feared that some of the fair sirens to be found theer may be German spies
 Will Have Real Cafes
 The war may or may not deprive us of some of our famous clubs, which will l. t>r, Adxy nrr fhxaxy hoV V a. appeared, but one thing is certain, the war will give London what 1t has never had before--real cafes, as you find them in evers' city on the continent.
 As a matter of fact, the war has all ready done so, for so overcrowded arc the few cafes we have had here for years been, like the Royal and the Monico. that enterprising men are about to open half score new cafes in the West End.
 This innovation in London life is really due to the wealthier class of Belgian refugees, who were, fortunate enough to get part of their possessions out of Bell gium before the Germans took possession of everything.
 A cafe Is as necessary to a Belgian as 1t Is tt Parisian. and these refugees inl- mediately began to search London for suitable cafes and were astonished to ind there were none, or next to none.
 At present you find in the Cafe Royal, in Regent street. new class of clients, the artists having gone to the war and the journalists having their hands full It Is nov the favorite resort of soldiers in khaki and Belgians and a most interest ng place 1t is to drop into any night after 8:30.
 Seated always in the same corner you see ar exact duplicate of the late King Edward the French editor of g prominent Belgian paper now published and sold here In many thousand copies daily
 Speak In Various Languages
 On one of the side lounges you are ai- most as sure to find an Anglo-R Russian couple of artistic tendencies and Bohem- ian appearance, and all around Belgians n animated conversation in apparent half u dozen different languages. which, how ever. turn out to be various dialects of Flemish and Belgian French. the latter being quite different from the Parisian variety.
 At 10 o'clock . sigh gees through tho