Not very many years ago, before the registration of clubs was made compulsory by law, there were many so-called “clubs” in London which were little but revivals of the old night-houses and gaming-hells, though the latter were always subject to occasional raids. Whether the suppression of markedly Bohemian clubs generally was an entirely wise measure seems somewhat doubtful; the mere hounding of dissipation from one haunt to another effects no good, and in all probability the best plan would have been to tolerate a certain number of such resorts, provided they were orderly and did not constitute a nuisance to the neighbourhood. The gambling clubs, often run by very shady characters, undoubtedly did considerable harm to numbers of pigeons, who, however, would in most instances have lost their money even had such resorts not existed. The best known of these so-called “clubs,” however, were started solely to pillage some rich young dupes who formed the support of such places and their crowd of most dubious members. Clubs of this kind often provided a very luxurious supper free, it being well worth the while of the proprietor to attract anyone likely to keep the place going. As a rule, the individual in question also laid the odds during the afternoon, and some colossal pieces of roguery were not infrequently perpetrated in connection with turf speculation. As late as the early eighties of the last century, young men about town were exposed to every kind of insidious robbery. The more blatant forms of West End brigandage seem now to have abated; but human nature does not change, and very likely they have merely altered in form. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VIII THE TRAVELLERS’—ORIENTAL—ST. JAMES’—TURF—MARLBOROUGH —ISTHMIAN—WINDHAM—BACHELORS’—UNION—CARLTON—JUNIOR CARLTON—CONSERVATIVE—DEVONSHIRE—REFORM Though, as has before been said, the majority of West End clubs have been obliged by force of circumstances to relax the exclusiveness which was formerly one of their most salient features, a few still manage to retain that social prestige which was the pride of quite a number in the past. A conspicuous instance is the Travellers’, a club which from the days of its foundation has always been somewhat capricious in electing members. The list of public men who have been blackballed here is considerable. The late Mr. Cecil Rhodes was rejected in 1895, and at different times the late Lord Sherbrooke, the late Lord Lytton, Lord Randolph Churchill, and other public men have met with the same ill fate.