London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History -- 1800-1950
’Then I mount on my palfrey as gay as a lark,
And, followed by John, take the dust in Hyde Park.
In the way I am met by some smart Macaroni,
Who rides by my side on a little bay pony;
... as taper and slim as the ponies they ride,
Their legs are as slim, and their shoulders no wider,’ etc.
The Savoir Vivre Club did not outlive the reign of the Macaronis, which
lasted about five years, and the club ended its days—the chairmen and
linkmen never having understood its foreign appellation—as a
public-house bearing the name and sign of The Savoy Weavers. There were,
in the last century especially, no end of Small clubs, whose objects in
most cases were trivial and ridiculous. Short notice is all they
deserve.
The Humdrum Club was composed of gentlemen of peaceable dispositions,
who were satisfied to meet at a tavern, smoke their pipes, and say
nothing till midnight. The Twopenny Club was formed by a number of
artisans and mechanics, who met every night, each depositing on his
entering the club-room his twopence. If a member swore, his neighbours
might kick him on the shins. If a member’s wife came to fetch him, she
was to speak to him outside the door. In the reign of Charles II. was
established the Duellists’ Club, to which no one was admitted who had
not killed his man. The chronicler of the club naïvely says: ’This
club, consisting only of men of honour, did not continue long, most of
the members being put to the sword or hanged.’
The Everlasting Club, founded in the first decade of the last century,
was so called because its hundred members divided the twenty-four hours
of day and night among themselves in such a manner that the club was
always sitting, no person presuming to rise till he was relieved by his
appointed successor, so that a member of the club not on duty himself
could always find company, and have his whet or draught, as the rules
say, at any time.
The tradespeople and workmen of the past seem to have had a passion for
clubs; but there is this to be said in their favour, theirs were only
drinking clubs. Our modern patrons of low-class clubs establish them for
the worse pursuits of gambling and betting.
*IX.*
*CURIOUS STORIES OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE.*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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