Year: 1873

Hinder the title of the Housewives Horror.
the London weekly papers have lately dis
cussed pretty freely club-life, and its bearings
upon that domestic bliss which we have been
led to think was one of England's safest bull
warks of civilization and religion. Club-lite
there belongs to every grade of society; but
with us. it is but in its homage, and has
scarcely developed influences enough of any
sort for us to determine whether 1t will prove
in our laxer, freer, but purer social atmosphere
as destructive to the Family as its English
enemies assert. Outside of half dozen OF
the large cities in this country, clubs are un-
known. There is vague feminine prejudice
against them which deters men In smaller
towns from forming them. A man alone may
have courage to risk life TO assault a parapet,
or a tyranny; but he must have good
backing ere he faces the cold stare of petit
coated responsibility abroad, and fearful silence
from the wronged domestic element at home.
That young men should associate themselves
together for purely literary or scientific pur-
poses is rational enough, in a wOman's judg-
ment, and here and there wife may be
found willing that her husband should join
them, and have at least one pursuit of which
she has no knowledge, and ride q hobby
which will not bear pillion behind. But
that men, especially married men, should COM
bine to furnish for themselves a place OF
meeting which shall offer at once qualification
for their literary, artistic, or social needs, and
subserve also the purposes of home, is an
infringement on the rights of the family
which no woman with a grain of spirit will
endure.


81 Al -
the days work in counting-roOm or office,
that the club offers luxurious chairs and sur
roundngs, a deliciOusly cooked dinner, with
Smiths wit and Jones's wisdom to aid
its digestion, and, above all, quiet, to
enjoy his post prandal cigar; while at
home there are soed napkins tough
mutton, and noisy children, and for en-
tertainment his wife's gossip of kitchen delin-
quents OF Mrs. Smiths last balls True, he
married for better for worse ; but must it be
all worse and never betterf True again, his
wife must endure tough mutton, children, and
Biddy ad nauseam; for her there is no invit
ing door of escape by club or elsewhere. That
is her share of the argument; sharp and
heavy enough to keep clubs and their temp
tatiOns, as we said, out of the social life of our
villages and towns, which is notably under
feminine control. In New-YOrk or any large
city the position of the parties is different.
Any woman of intelligence can appreciate the
rason d'etre of clubs here, for not only bach
eors but married men. 1t is true that if the
husband of a fashionable woman have money
enough (there, to begin with, is the sin laid
promptly at his own door,, he need not
be annoyed with ill-cooked dinners
or noisy children. In FIVE cases out
of ten in New-York he leaves his Office to find
both not in home, but In hotel or board
ng-house. where children can be put out of
sight, and the cook ought to be on par
with that of the club. But man is gregarious
it is to satisfy his need of society," not dinners,
he knocks for admission at the door of the
Century, the Union, or the Knickerbocker. His
wife, to be sure, offers him society according TO
the ideas of herself and her kind; night after
night you may sec him in full dress. fat,
heavy. dull-eyed. smiling namely on the back
chairs IN an opora-box. OF iammed in tho