Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

This is another much admired structure upon the "sunny side" of Pall Mall-built

in 1848-9.

The buildings of this class in London are all of a most elegant character. The "Traveller's" has, however, obtained a distinction which has not fallen to the lot of any other cotemporary structure, it having been the subject of an elegant volume of architectural illustrations, (published by Mr. Weale ;) a circumstance that has, perhaps, contributed to diffuse an acquaintance with the genius and resources of that so-called Italianpalazzo style, all the chief features and details of that club-house being there shown at large.

As the arrangement and management of Club-Houses will be new to most of our readers, we extract for insertion here, a general notice of their design and character from a late London publication :

CLUB-HOUSES.

As at present constituted, the London clubs and club life have produced a new phase in English society, at least in the metropolis-one that will claim the notice of some future Macaulay, as showing the very "form and pressure of the time;" while to the more patient chronicler of anecdotes, club-house traditions and reminiscences will afford materials all the more interesting, perhaps, for not being encumbered with the dignity of formal history. Our task is merely to touch upon and attempt a slight characteristic outline of them; not to trace the history of clubs to their origin in the heroic ages of Greece. We shall not go back even to the clubs of the last century, except just to indicate cursorily some of the special differences between them and those of the present day.

Until about thirty years ago a club was seldom more than a mere knot of acquaintances who met together of an evening, at stated times, in a room engaged for that purpose at some tavern, and some of them held their meetings at considerable intervals apart. Most of them were any thing but fashionable-some of them upon a footing not at all higher than that of a club of mechanics. Among the regulations of the Essex-street Club, for instance, (instituted by Dr. Johnson shortly before his death, and

which was limited to twenty-four members,) one was, that each person should spend not less than sixpence; another, that each absentee should forfeit threepence, and each of the company was to contribute a penny as a douceur to the waiter! At that period the chief object of such associations was relaxation after the business of the day, and the enjoyment of a social evening in a homely way in what would now be called a snug party. The celebrated "Literary Club," which was founded by Reynolds in 1763, and whose meetings were held once a week at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard-street, Soho, now a very unfashionable locality, consisted at first of only nine members, which number was, however, gradually increased to the large number of thirty-five; yet, limited as it was, it would not be easy even now to bring together as large a number of equally distinguished characters. That club dined together once a fortnight, on which occasions "the feast of reason and the flow of soul" were, no doubt, enjoyed in perfection. In most clubs of that period, on the contrary, the flow of wine, or other liquor, was far more abundant than that of mind, and the conversation was generally more easy and hilarious than intellectual or refined. The bottle, or else the punch-bowl, played too prominent a part; and sociality too frequently partook of bacchanalian festivity, if not revelry, at least, or what would now be considered such according to our more temperate habits;-and it deserves to be remarked that, though in general the elder clubs encouraged compotation and habits of free indulgence as indispensable to goodfellowship and sociality, the modern clubs, on the contrary, have done much to discourage them as low and ungentlemanly. "Reeling home from a club" used to be formerly a common expression; whereas now, inebriety, or the symptom of it, in a clubhouse, would bring down disgrace upon him who should be guilty of such an indiscretion.

The old clubs have passed away, for though some of them, or similar societies, may still exist, it is behind the scenes instead of figuring conspicuously upon the stage. Quite a new order of things has come up, the clubs of the present time being upon quite a different footing, and also, comparatively, gigantic in scale. From small social meetings held periodically, they

Although it does not bear those words inscribed upon it, the carte seems to say FARE WELL, not as a phrase of dismissal, but of welcome and invitation, its contents being such as to adapt themselves to the humor of every palate, since they range from roast beef and other joints au naturel to the most recherché sophistications of edible substances. Besides, the more material advantages, the completeness of the attendance, the admirable good management, and the style in which every thing is conducted, ought to be taken into account; and what not least of all recommends a club-house to those who have no establishment of their own, is the economy of the

have become permanent establishments, lux-| gen über Esskunst."* urious in all their appointments; and of some of them the locales are quite palatial. No longer limited to a few acquaintances familiarly known to each other, they count their members by hundreds, and, sleeping accommodation excepted, provide for them abundantly all the agrémens of an aristocratic home and admirably-regulated ménage, without any of the trouble inseparable from a private household, unless it be one whose management is, as in a club-house, confided to responsible superintendents. In fact, a modern London club is a realization of a Utopian cœnobium-a sort of lay convent rivalling the celebrated Abbey of Thelemé, with its agreeable rule of “ Fais ce que vou-system. To live upon the same scale and dras," instead of monastic discipline and mortification. Even a Sybarite might be content with the studied and refined comfort which pervades every department of a West End club-house, and which is such as to be unattainable in a private family, except by the opulent, though here brought within the reach of those whose means are comparatively moderate.

footing, to be surrounded with the same atmosphere of luxuriousness and refinement elsewhere, at any thing like the same cost, is utterly impracticable. The moral influence of the club life is also, upon the whole, a favorable one; if there be no longer that heartiness of sociality which characterized the clubs of the last century, when their meetings did not exceed in number that of a private party of friends, there is more of the polish of gentlemanly manners and de corum, and infinitely less of intemperance, or rather intemperance is banished altogether as a low and disgraceful vice, and what, if openly indulged in so as to exhibit its effects, would disqualify for companionship, and lead to loss of caste. Great is the improvement which has taken place in our

Besides those staple features, news-room and coffee-room, the usual accommodation of a club-house comprises library and writingroom, evening or drawing-room, and cardroom, billiard and smoking-rooms, and even baths and dressing-rooms; also a "housedining-room," committee-room, and other apartments; all appropriately fitted up according to their respective purposes, and supplied with almost every imaginable convenience. In addition to the provision thus amply made for both intellectual and other recreation, there is another important and tasteful department of the establishment; which with many, perhaps, stands foremost among the attractions of a club-housenamely, the cuisine; nor is its auxiliary, the cellar, to be overlooked. The first-mentioned of these is presided over by a chef, sometimes one, like Soyer, whose fame is widely spread among the adepts in gastron-bright moonshiny midnights, as well as dark ones, omy, as an accomplished artiste-a professor whose performances do not fall short of his professions, but who shows himself skilled in the most recondite mysteries of culinary philosophy and science, and to be worthy of a niche in the "Classiques de la Table," or of honorable mention by some future Anthus, in a series of ticklingly piquant "Vorlesun

Apropos to kitchen matters, Anthus himself has recorded the sausage-making achievements of Leo X., though whether the flesh of papal buils The gentle Elia," too, has given us a most amuformed any of the ingredients is not specified. sing account of the "Origin of Roast Pig;" but no one has yet pretended to discover that of pickled onions. Yet the inventor of them was obviously no less a personage than Queen Cleopatra herself, who was the first that steeped a unionem or entenem in vinegar. Now that it is here pointed out, the matter is as clear as midnight—and that there are

to the diners at club-houses, if we are to believe the most captious cannot deny. Apropos, again, the late Lady Blessington, many a wealthy old bachelor is compelled to starve at home upon spunge-cake and a bottle of Madeira—a substitute for dinner-when he is prevented from going to his club; it being impossible, it would seem, in such a place as London, even for those who can afford to pay for it, to procure a dinner from a tavern.

English habits in this respect; and it is one As to the management of a club housewhich has partly, if not mainly, been brought hold, nothing of the kind can be more comabout by modern club habits-after-dinner plete or more economical, because all its compotations and evening symposia being details are conducted quite systematically, quite out of the question. In fact, club- consequently without the slightest confuhouse statistics would warrant our conclusion or bustle. The whole may be compared ding that, instead of aught approaching ex- to a skillfully-contrived piece of machinery, cess, abstemiousness is the general rule, the regularly wound up and kept in order. average charge a head for wine and liqueurs Every one has his proper post and definite being under two shillings per diem-a most duties, and what contributes to his dischargmonstrous falling-off from the days of six- ing them as he ought is, that he has no time bottle heroes in the annals of bacchanalian to be idle; wherefore many a private estabachievement; although the degeneracy from lishment might take an excellent lesson from such heroism may fairly be considered an that of a club-house. The following is the advancement in civilization. scheme of government adopted :-At the head of affairs is the committee of management, who are appointed from among the members, and hold office for a certain time, during which they constitute a board of control, from whom all orders emanate, and to whom all complaints are made, and irregularities reported. They superintend all matters of expenditure and the accounts, which last are duly audited every year by others, who officiate as auditors. The committee further appoint the several officers and servants, also the several trades-people. The full compliment of a club-house establishment consists of secretary and librarian, steward and housekeeper; to these principal officials succeed hall-porter, groom of the chambers, butler, under-butler; then in the kitchen department, clerk of the kitchen, chef, cooks, kitchen-maids, &c.; lastly, attendants, or footmen, and female servants, of both which classes the number is greater or less, according to the scale of the household.

For those who avail themselves of it, the refectory part of the club-house system recommends itself by extraordinary cheapness in comparison with the superior quality of the viands; which cheapness, marvellous as it may appear, is at once accounted for by the fact that whatever is consumed in the way of eating and drinking, is charged to the actual consumer at only cost price, and is further supplied in large quantities by the best purveyors. All other expenses, such as rents, rates and taxes, salaries, servants' wages, &c., fall upon the club or general body, and are defrayed out of the fund arising from entrance fees and the annual subscriptions; both which last vary, they being in some clubs considerably higher than in others, according to the style and status affected for the institution. The advantages held out by clubs of this description are such that they would be abused were it not for one wholesome regulation, and, indeed, quite indispensable precaution, which is, that no one can be admitted as a member unless he be first proposed by some actual member, who thereby becomes responsible for his pretensions and eligibility; nor is even that sufficient, for the candidate must afterwards undergo the ordeal of the ballot-box. Another precaution is, that each member must leave with the secretary his bond fide address, or place of residence for the time being. Thus a club is tolerably well fenced in from those "loose fish" of society, who might else, by clever manoeuvring, contrive to get out of their own proper element into that higher one, where, after all, perhaps, they might chance to find themselves pretty much in the condition of fish out of water.

The regularity which pervades the domestic economy generally, is particularly remarkable in the kitchen department; for instead of any thing like bustle, or that fuss which notable housewives seem to think essential to good management, all the culinary operations, multifarious as they are, are conducted with activity and dispatch, at the same time in the most orderly and methodical manner, towards which the arrangements of the place contribute not a little. In the Reform, and some of the other large clubhouses, the kitchen, with its manifold apparatus, machinery, and modi operandi, constitutes a perfect laboratory for scientific preparations of the most appetite-enticing kind. In fact, the greatly-improved apparatus,

appliances, and contrivances here adopted, | focus of architectural effect. At a desk near

render this part of a club-house well worth the study of a practical architect, more especially as scarcely any information whatever respecting kitchens, and other domestic offices, is to be obtained from books even professedly on the subject of domestic architecture. Besides the kitchen itself, properly so called, there are various dependencies belonging to it, for stores of the ammunition du bouche - special larders and pantries for every kind of materiel, viz., not only for meat generally, but for cold meat, game, fish, vegetables, confectionary, separately. That there are various store-rooms and cellars hardly needs be said; and in addition to them, there are one or more servants' halls, a clerk of the kitchen's room, butler's do., together with others of the principal domestics. Hence the basement of a club-house requires quite as much or more study and contrivance than any other part of the plan; and in order to double the space to which it would else be confined, it is usually sunk to a very great depth, so as to obtain an additional floor within it, that is, an entresol between the lowermost or kitchen floor and the apparent external ground-floor. This economy of plan--which may be said to be peculiarly English-provides a complete habitation for the domestic and official part of the establishment, and an invisible one also, provided it be properly screened out by dwarf parapet walls or balustrading, to prevent the area being overlooked, as is done at the Travellers' and Reform, where such inclosure below enhances not a little the general effect of the elevation by producing a suitable architectural base, and substituting the ornamental for the unsightly. In those club-houses which have baths, they, and the dressingrooms annexed to them, are placed in the entresol.

On the ground-floor the principal hall is sometimes entered immediately from the street; in other instances it is preceded by an outer vestibule of smaller dimensions and far more simple architectural character, which disposition is by far the better of the two, inasmuch as it produces greater extent of approach, secures greater privacy and protection from draughts of air to the inner hall and the rooms opening into it, and also keeps in reserve what may be called the

the entrance is stationed the hall-porter, whose office it is to receive and keep an account of all messages, cards, letters, dc, and to take charge of the box into which the members put letters to be delivered to the postman; his function is therefore one that requires unremitting punctuality and attention. The two chief apartments on this floor are the morning-room and coffeeroom,* the first of which is the place of general rendezvous in the early part of the day, and for reading the newspapers. They are, of course, very spacious apartments, but of comparatively sober characterthough for the new "Carlton" coffee-room a high degree of ornateness has been studied. The only other public room on this floor is the house-dining room, yet it can hardly be reckoned among them, at least not among the "show" rooms, it being, it would seem, etiquette that it should be of extreme plainness, however lavishly other parts of the interior may be decorated. With regard to its particular denomination and purpose, it may be proper here to explain that, although the habitués of the club take their meals in the coffee-room, some of the members occa sionally-perhaps about once a month, make up a set dinner party, for which they previously put down their names, the day and number of guests being fixed; and such social quasi-private reunions around the "mahogany," which may be termed reminiscences of the clubs of other times, are in club parlance styled house-dinners. Another room, which, however, is wanting in some club-houses-is an ante-room or waitingroom, where a stranger can have an interview with a member.

Ascending to the upper or principal floor, we there find the evening or drawing-room, and card-room, the library, and writing-room; the first-mentioned of which is made the superlative degree, if not always of architec tural effect, of the embellishment aimed at. With regard to the card-room, Honi soit qui mal y pense !-gambling and games of chance are interdicted; not even so much as what Lady Townly calls "poor, piddling, five-guinea whist" is permitted; therefore,

In some of the club-houses there is also what is called the "Strangers' Coffee-room," into which members can introduce their friends as occasional visitors.

if any gamblers there be, they must either | some, so tractable, so intelligent, so well do penance at their club, or seek some refuge cared for, and so well appreciated, as in in some less scrupulous and strait-laced this country; and that, in consequence of society. For many, no doubt, the intellect the national fonduess for races his breed has ual refectory or library possesses as strong been improved until he has attained his attractions as any other feature, since it present excellency-believing all this, we supplies them with all the journalism and think it quite possible to do him justice, the cream of the literature of the day. The without defiling the subject with any allusion writing-room is also a very great accommo- to the knavery to which he, sometimes, innodation, for many gentlemen write their let-cently gives rise. Those who practise it are ters at, and date from, their club. Upon this floor is generally the committee-room, and likewise the secretary's room. The next or uppermost floor, which, however, does not show itself externally, it being concealed within the roof, is appropriated partly to the billiard and smoking-rooms, and partly to servants' dormitories, which divisions are kept distinct from each other.

From Dickens' "Household Words."

EPSOM.

A STRAGGLING street, an undue proportion of inns, a large pond, a pump, and a magnificent brick clock case, make upwith a few more touches not necessary to be given here the picture of the metropolis of English racing, and the fountain of Epsom salts. For three hundred and sixtyfour days in the year a cannon-ball might be fired from one end of Epsom to the other without endangering human life. On the three hundred and sixty-fifth, or Derby day, a population surges and rolls, and scrambles through the place, that may be counted in millions.

Epsom during the races, and Epsom at any other time, are things as unlike as the Desert of Sahara and the interior of the Palace of Glass in Hyde Park. We intend, for the edification of the few who know Epsom races only by name, and for the amusement (we hope) of the many who have sported over its Downs during the races, to give some account of Epsom under both aspects.

his vulgar parasites; for the owners of racehorses number among them the highest and most honorable names in the country.

Financially, the subject is not unworthy of notice. Racers give employment to thousands. According to Captain Rous, there are upwards of two hundred thorough-bred stallions, and one thousand one hundred brood mares, which produce about eight hundred and thirty foals annually; of these there are generally three in the first class of race-horses, seven in the second class; and they descend gradually in the scale to the amount of four hundred and eighty, one half of which never catch the judge's eye; the remainder are either not trained, or are found unworthy at an early period.

The number of race-courses is one hundred and eleven; of which three are in Ireland, and six in Scotland.

It is Monday-the Monday before the Derby day, and a railway takes us, in less than an hour, from London Bridge to the capital of the racing world, close to the abode of its Great Man, who is-need we add !—the Clerk of the Epsom Course. It is, necessarily, one of the best houses in this place; being-honor to literature-a flourishing bookseller's shop. We are presented to the official. He kindly conducts us to the Downs, to show how the horses are temporarily stabled; to initiate us into some of the mysteries of the "field;" to reveal to us, in fact, the private life of the race-horse.

We arrived at a neat farm-house, with more outbuildings than are usually seen appended to so modest a homestead. A sturdy, well-dressed, well-mannered, purpose-like, Our graver readers need not be alarmed— | sensible-looking man, presents himself. He we know little of horses; and, happily, for has a Yorkshire accent. A few words passed -Ourselves, nothing of sporting; but, believing between him and the Clerk of the Course, in the dictum of the Natural History chap- in which we hear the latter asseverate with ters of the Universal Spelling Book that much emphasis that we are, in a sporting the "horse is a noble animal," and that he sense, quite artless-we rather think sis nowhere so noble, so well-bred, so hand-"green," was the exact expression-that

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »