LATE SITTINGS—FINES—CARDS—CHARACTERS—SUPPER CLUBS
Amongst the changes in club-life in London, perhaps the most striking is the almost total cessation of the late sittings in which members formerly indulged. Various causes have contributed to make people in the West End of London keep earlier hours, of which the most notable is that the number of unoccupied men, who once formed a large proportion of those living in what is called the fashionable part of the town, has shrunk to a very small number, if it has not altogether ceased to exist. In other days there were plenty of young bachelors with something under a thousand a year who spent their life in complete idleness. A club was the pivot of their existence, and here they would often sit till the small-hours of the morning.
Another cause of early hours is the great popularity of motoring and golf, the widespread indulgence in which does anything but promote a love of sitting up late.
At the time when a great number of people had nothing to do all day, not a few regarded the night as being the most amusing part of their existence, when they could forgather with choice spirits and 179sit talking one against the other, as the old phrase had it, “till all was blue.”
As illustrating the lateness of the hours formerly kept by members of some West End clubs, a story used to be told about a staid country member who, arriving at one of these institutions, having travelled by a night train, went up to the coffee-room and began to order breakfast, upon which he was told, by a sleepy waiter, that no suppers were served after 6 a.m.
One of the latest sitters was Theodore Hook, so renowned for spontaneous wit. He was very proud of a peculiar receipt of his own for the prevention of exposure to the evil effects of night air. “I was once very ill,” said he, “and my doctor gave me particular orders not to expose myself to it; so I come up (from Fulham) every day to Crockford’s, or some other place, to dinner, ever since which I have made it a rule on no account to go home again till about four or five o’clock in the morning.”
Those were the days when the closing hours of a number of West End clubs were much later than is at present the case. Now there are seldom many members to be found in a club-house after one, and fines have become rare. Up to about fifteen or twenty years ago, considerable laxity prevailed as to enforcing these penalties which are exacted for sitting up after a certain hour, but the introduction of more business-like habits into West End life has put an end to such a state of affairs. Late sittings at clubs were, of course, in the vast majority of instances, connected with 180card-playing; and when this pastime was more prevalent than is now the case, some confirmed lovers of whist, and later of bridge, occasionally sat very late indeed.
Whist is now practically an obsolete game, and it is curious to recall that the introduction of short whist was once considered a great innovation. “Major A.,” the author of “Short Whist,” a book which was famous in the middle of the last century, gives the following account of its origin: “This revolution was occasioned by a worthy Welsh Baronet preferring his lobster for supper hot. Four first-rate whist-players—consequently four great men—adjourned from the House of Commons to Brooks’s, and proposed a rubber while the cook was busy. ‘The lobster must be hot,’ said the Baronet. ‘A rubber may last an hour,’ said another, ‘and the lobster may be cold again or spoiled before we finish.’ ‘It is too long,’ said a third. ‘Let us cut it shorter,’ said the fourth. Carried nem. con. Down they sat, and found it very lively to win or lose so much quicker. Besides furnishing conversation for supper, the thing was new—they were legislators, and had a fine opportunity to exercise their calling.”
Another version was supplied by James Clay, who was one of the principal authorities on whist in his day. His account is as follows:
“Some eighty years back, Lord Peterborough having one night lost a large sum of money, the friends with whom he was playing proposed to make the game five points instead of ten, in order to give the loser a chance, at a quicker game, of 181recovering his loss. The late Mr. Hoare of Bath, a very good whist-player, and without a superior at piquet, was one of this party, and used frequently to tell this story.”
Whatever the origin of short whist may have been, the controversy between the advocates of long whist and those who supported the new game was a bitter struggle. Innovators are always hated, and have their characters blackened by those who have grown too old to care for the new, or those who are too unintelligent to do so. The clergy to a man were for long whist.
The laws of whist were first codified in England at the instance of Mr. Baldwin. The Turf Club in 1863 was called the Arlington. The matter was suggested to the committee of the Arlington, and a number of members were appointed to investigate matters and compile a code. These were: George Bentinck, M.P. for West Norfolk; John Bushe, son of the Chief Justice of “Patronage” fame; J. Clay, M.P., chairman; Charles C. Grenville; Sir Rainald Knightley, M.P.; H. B. Mayne, G. Payne, and Colonel Ripon. When completed, the code was submitted to the Portland Club, and a committee of this the chief whist club of the country considered its contents. This committee consisted of H. D. Jones, chairman, the father of the late “Cavendish,” who died in 1899; Charles Adams, W. F. Baring, H. Fitzroy, Samuel Petrie, H. M. Riddell, and R. Wheble. It was on April 30, 1864, that the code was officially sanctioned—a red-letter day in the annals of whist.
The triumph of bridge over whist is a matter 182of recent social history which will be dealt with later on.
The greatest breach of regulations ever committed was probably that which occurred in a well-known West End club some thirteen or fourteen years ago, when two members sat through the whole night at cards, and became so absorbed in their game that they were still sitting there at the re-opening at nine the next morning. Notwithstanding the arrival of a number of outraged members, they continued playing till one, when, having reluctantly risen from the card-table, they walked out into the sunlight, handing in their resignations as they left. As a matter of fact, the stakes played for were comparatively moderate, and the differences at the close of the séance were consequently small. Both men, it should be added, were confirmed sitters-up, and the abnormal hours kept by them on several previous occasions had called forth remonstrances from the committee. At the majority of London clubs, fines are inflicted on those sitting up after the hours of one-thirty or two, though in some cases they begin earlier or later. In such club-houses as are not definitely closed at two-thirty or three, the fines gradually rise till the hour of five or six o’clock is reached, when any further sojourn in the club-house is punished by expulsion.
The amount to be paid for remaining in certain clubs till the actual time of closing is considerable; nevertheless there have been instances of members remaining to the very last minute who were not card-players, and merely sat up through indifference or thoughtlessness.
183The present writer remembers one member who actually had to pay a fine of ￡17 for sitting all alone in a club till the doors were closed. This gentleman had a perfect mania for not going to bed, and his habit of keeping the whole club-house going, long after the other members were in bed, eventually caused a complete readjustment of the scale of fines and the adoption of an earlier hour for closing. As a matter of fact, though he paid the heavy fines with perfect complacency, the sums received were not sufficient to cover the expenses of lighting, servants, and the like, for the whole establishment, of course, had to be kept going till it was his pleasure to depart.
In old days, quite a number of club-men would habitually turn night into day; but this is no longer the case, and the few members who still adhere to the habits of another age are generally regarded with little favour by committees. Several clubs, as a matter of fact, have altered their hours entirely to prevent the club-house from being kept open solely for the benefit of one or two members.
Another complaint against late sitters is that the club servants, in consequence of being obliged to keep later hours, are unfitted for their work; but there is really no particular reason why this should be the case, as a different staff comes on duty towards the evening, the members of which, at several clubs, are allotted a certain proportion of any fines.
The latest club of all used formerly to be the Garrick, where, in the days when the late Sir Henry Irving, Mr. Toole, and others, came to supper in 184the small dining-room, very late or rather very early hours indeed were kept. Within the last few years, late sittings have ceased to be the order of the day except on certain occasions, and new rules have been made, the general tendency of which is to encourage a comparatively early retirement to bed. An exception, however, is made in favour of Saturday night, the traditional evening for suppers at the Garrick.
One of the latest clubs in London used to be the St. James’, founded more than forty years ago by the late Marquis d’Azeglio and others. One of the objects for which this club was formed was to provide a meeting-place for secretaries and attachés after balls and parties, and for this reason no fine at all was inflicted before 4 p.m. It may also be added that in former years such fines as did exist were not very rigorously enforced. Quite a different state of affairs, however, now prevails, the whole scale of fines having been readjusted some years ago, owing to which—and other causes—late sittings are now things of the past.
The Beefsteak Club, like the Garrick, once contained quite a number of members who had a great disinclination to go to bed, and who lingered late over the pleasant talk of the supper-table. Here also the spirit of the age has effected a change, for practically all the old school of Beefsteakers, of which that most delightful of men, the late Joseph Knight, was such a brilliant example, are gone, and the hours kept are now very reasonable.
The Turf Club, which used formerly to be full of people after the theatres were closed, is now 185somewhat deserted at night, and the same state of affairs prevails at practically all the West End clubs.
The late hours once kept by many club-men were in a great measure the cause of the dislike with which a number of old-fashioned, strait-laced people used to regard London clubs, which, as has already been said, were denounced as pernicious resorts where drinking and gaming were by no means unknown. To-day such accusations can no longer with any justice be sustained.
In France, however, the state of affairs as regards gaming, at least, is very different, for, owing to the heavy tax levied by Government upon club funds, no institution of the nature of a club can be prosperously conducted without some amount of gambling. Indeed, most French clubs of any social standing derive a considerable portion of their income from card-money, and not a few permit baccarat, the profits of which, drawn from the Cagnotte, bring in a large sum of money to the club funds. In England, however, except in a few exceptional cases—Crockford’s, for instance—no club has ever existed for the avowed purpose of play. To begin with, public opinion has always viewed this pastime (which so often degenerates into a vice) with extremely unfavourable eyes, and no one of any position has cared to be seen openly risking large sums of money upon the turn of a card. In addition to this, any protracted continuance of high play in a club has always been reprobated by a large majority of members as being likely to produce a scandal—and, as a matter of fact, 186a scandal has almost invariably followed in the wake of high play.
The French, many of whom set aside a certain amount of money to be used for play—a bourse du jeu, as it is called—are well aware of the danger of losing their heads at cards; but the vast majority of Englishmen are soon made nervous and excited when once they have been caught by the fascination of play. For this reason—or some other—a high game never goes on very long without the occurrence of a catastrophe, for sooner or later someone will lose a far larger sum of money than he can either afford or pay. The generality of club members limit their gambling to a mild game of bridge, and there is very little play at anything else now. Some twenty years ago, however, there was a slight epidemic of the gaming fever in the West End of London, and quite a number of so-called “clubs,” the only object of which was high play, were started, mostly by shrewd veterans of the sporting world, some of whom remembered the days when hazard had extracted such vast sums from the pockets of careless Corinthians, and when wily Crockford conducted his great Temple of Chance in St. James’s Street. Such clubs were, of course, furnished with a committee and an elaborate set of rules, the most respected of which were those relating to the fines. These, after a certain hour, brought much grist to the proprietors’ mills. Such clubs were in reality little but miniature casinos, and the main, if not the sole, qualification for membership lay in being possessed of ample funds and a tendency to part with them easily. The chief of these institutions 187were situated off Piccadilly and St. James’s Street, about which the spirit of that reckless speculation which raged in this neighbourhood so fiercely in the eighteenth century has always had a tendency to linger.
Baccarat was the game played at these haunts, and, though everything was quite fairly conducted, the loss of large sums by well-known young men about town eventually attracted considerable comment, and before very long the Park Club was raided by the police, upon which occasion a high legal luminary, it is said, was with the greatest difficulty smuggled out of the place. A celebrated trial, at the end of which baccarat was finally ruled to be an illegal game, resulted in the closing of this club. A somewhat similar institution, the Field Club, rose on its ashes, but this also was eventually raided and put an end to. Since that time one or two small clubs have been formed by a certain number of people desirous of playing bridge or poker for high stakes, but all of them have had a brief existence. The clubs just mentioned, it should be added, were quite different from the gaming clubs of the past, the members being rich men well able to take care of themselves, and the only reason for their cessation was that, as the membership was in every case very limited, they got tired of playing at the game of dog eat dog.
Sixty years ago, and later, there was a good deal of high play in London clubs. During the action for libel brought by Lord de Ros, when he had been accused of cheating at Graham’s, one witness admitted that in the course of fifteen years he had 188won ￡35,000, chiefly at whist; another said that his winnings averaged ￡1,600 a year. He generally played from three to five hours daily before dinner, and did not deny often having played all night.
Graham’s, 87 St. James’s Street, was at that time the headquarters of whist, and here it was said Lord Henry Bentinck invented the “Blue Peter,” or call for trumps.
Here Lieutenant-Colonel Aubrey, who declared that, next to winning, losing was the greatest pleasure in the world, is supposed once to have lost ￡35,000.
Bridge is said to have been first played in London at the Portland in the autumn of 1894, when it was introduced by Lord Brougham.
He was, it is said, playing whist, and, as he dealt the last card, neglected to turn it face upwards. By way of apology he then said: “I’m sorry, but I thought I was playing bridge;” and by way of explanation he gave a brief description of the new game, which so attracted his fellow-members that it soon took the place of whist.
Bridge, however, had been played long before this in Eastern Europe, and even in Persia, where the present writer perfectly remembers it as a popular game as far back as 1888.
The members of a colony of Greeks, indeed, are said to have played a sort of bridge in Manchester eighteen years before this, though the value of no trumps and of four aces was rather less than is now the case.
The headquarters of bridge is the Portland Club, now located at the corner of St. James’s Square. It moved here from Stratford Place, its old original 189home having been in Bloomsbury Square. For everything connected with bridge, as it was formerly for whist, the Portland is the acknowledged authority as the arbiter of disputes and for the promulgation of rules. There are about three hundred members of this club, which admits guests to dine, after which they may play in a small card-room specially reserved for their use.
Another card-playing club, which, however, admits no strangers, is the Baldwin, in Pall Mall East, which opens at two o’clock in the afternoon. The stakes here are very small.
Besides these admirably-conducted institutions, as Theodore Hook wrote, there are several
“Clubs for men upon the turf (I wonder they aren’t under it);
Clubs where the winning ways of sharper folks pervert the use of clubs,
Where knaves will make subscribers cry,
‘Egad! this is the deuce of clubs.’”
The latter term certainly applied to Crockford’s, which was flourishing when the lines in question were written. Here the wily proprietor neglected nothing to attract men of fashion of that day, most of whose money eventually drifted into his pockets.
Well knowing the value of a first-class cuisine, he provided every sort of culinary luxury, and took care that the suppers should be so excellent as to make his club the resort of all sorts of men about town, who flocked in about midnight from White’s, Brooks’s, and the Opera, to titillate their palates and try their luck at the hazard-table afterwards. Many who began cautiously, and risked but little, 190by degrees acquired a taste for the excitement of play, and ended by staking large sums, which they generally lost. Some few only were lucky; a certain young blood, for instance, who one night won the price of his “troop” in the Life Guards, purchased it, and never touched a dice-box again.
If, however, people were more or less sure to lose their money at Crockford’s, they were equally certain of getting admirable food at a quite nominal price, and for this reason many men of small means had little reason to complain of the great gambling institution in St. James’s Street.
As was once wittily said, a certain text of Scripture exactly applied to the proprietor. This was: “He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.”
Benjamin Crockford had begun life as a fishmonger near Temple Bar, but, being of a sporting character, was accustomed to stake a few shillings nightly at a low gaming-house kept by George Smith in King’s Place; later, he was lucky in a turf transaction. His first venture as a gaming-house proprietor was the purchase, for ￡100, of a fourth share in a hell at No. 5, King Street. His partners here were men named Abbott, Austin, and Holdsworth, and their operations were not above suspicion. Afterwards Crockford, in partnership with two others, opened a French hazard bank at 81 Piccadilly, and here again there was foul-play. The bank cleared ￡200,000 in a very short time; false dice were found on the premises and exhibited in a shop window in Bond Street for some days, and Crockford was sued by 191numbers of his victims, but took care to compromise every action before it had entered upon such an acute stage as to entail publicity.
Crockford’s patrons were all men of rank and breeding, the utmost decorum was observed, and society at the club was of the most pleasant and fashionable character. There was no smoking-room, and in the summer evenings the habitués of Crockford’s used to stand outside in the porch, with their cigars, drinking champagne and seltzer, and looking at the people going home from parties or the Opera. White’s, except in the afternoons, was deserted, members naturally going across the way, where there was a first-rate supper with wine of unexceptionable quality provided free of cost.
Crockford was well repaid for his liberality in these matters. By the profits of the hazard-table he realized in the course of a few years the enormous sum of ￡1,200,000.
Though the days when a certain number of London clubs were merely gaming-houses in disguise have long gone, there still exist club-men whose principal interest is the turf, and these not infrequently are much interested in the tape, around which they congregate when any important race is being run, the while mysterious murmurings and vague vaticinations prevail. Such members are generally young; with the increase of years they become, for the most part, profoundly indifferent to the expensive question of first, second, or third. A few ardent enthusiasts, however, retain their taste for this form of speculation, in spite of the long and inevitable series of disappointments which are the 192lot of the vast majority of starting-price backers. Rushing wildly into the club, they fly at once to the tape, generally dashing off to the telephone to put more money into some bookmaker’s pocket.
The cricket enthusiast is another great patron of the tape, by which he is either thoroughly depressed or rendered radiant, according to the comparative failure or success of his favourite county. He is generally a very kindly man, of innocent tastes and habits, which speaks well for the humanizing influence of Lord’s and the Oval.
Two clubs which are much frequented by the best class of sporting men are the comparatively old-established Raleigh (founded in 1858), in Regent Street, and the newer Badminton (founded in 1876), in Piccadilly, both of them well-managed institutions.
The Raleigh, which has always enjoyed a reputation for its cooking, in its earlier days was the scene of many an amusing prank played by younger members. All this, however, has long been a thing of the past.
A striking change in club-life is the vastly decreased consumption of alcohol. In former days, quite a number of members used every day to imbibe a considerable quantity of pernicious brandy and soda, the excess of which, without doubt, sent so many of the last generation to a premature grave. I do not by any means wish to imply that such men became intoxicated. Thirty or forty years ago, the drinking habits, so prevalent at the beginning of the last century, had already fallen into great disrepute, but brandy and soda was, for some unknown reason, 193considered a fairly harmless drink, and many club-men imbibed small quantities of it all the day through without in any way showing the slightest effect. Nevertheless, the continuous stream of alcohol insidiously ruined many a fine constitution. Sensible men of the present age study their health far more carefully, and the amount of what are known as “drinks” served daily in the best West End clubs is now very small indeed. On the other hand, “teas,” which forty years ago were little indulged in, are taken by almost everyone.
As late as the early seventies of the past c............