20 NOVEMBER 1830, Page 12

, . THE WORST FAULT OF THE CLUBS.

'THE ladies Complain of the clubs, and the tavern-keepers com- plain of the clubs, but of all people newspaper proprietors have most reason to complain of the clubs. What a sight it is to see scores of the gobe-mouche kind swarming about a club-table, their eyes starting out of their empty heads, and their hands tremulous with impatience for the seizure of the .desired paper! The true Quidnunc having clutched and leisurely devoured one, to the births; marriages, and deaths, and washed it down with the high water at London Bridge, takes another, and another, aid; ano- ther in succession, and sacks them too ; and, for reading, on a moderate calculation, twelve journals a day, the glutton pays at the rate of something less than fourpence—that is to say, sup- posing he derives no advantage from the joint-stock-mutton-chop- 'company part of the system, or the sitting in easy leathern chairs, and all the conveniences of gossip,—assuming, we repeat, that he uses his club for reading only, his subscription gives him the glutting of a dozen journal's at less than the rate we have men- 'toned. Many of these ravenous creatures will devour a couple of miles of column per day—long primer, minion, and diamond print: We wish the milestones were in their greedy bminpans ! And does it do them any good—do they thrive when these tape- worms of news are in the cavities of their understandings? No; on the contrary., their minds are lean and macerated, and they have on them all the appearances of a green-sickness, and a spu- rions appetite for coals, chalk, and rubbish of any sort. Take the bill of fare of any one of these beings possessed of the devil of idle curiosity, for a week-day and a Sunday. The meal com- Mendes about eleven, when you see the monster posting into the .reading-room, all eagerness for the surfeiting banquet ; and he _goes through, or rather there go through him,

The Times, The Chronicle; The Herald, The Post.

This brings him to abont.four o'clock,—taking " how d'ye does" into the account, and the time lost in wiping spectacles and com- plaining there is no news. At four, the unhappy being finds a cruel void. He has taken each journal up for the second time, and penetrated- the obscurest corners of the print. He. ,now walks -disconsolately and.restlessly up and down; looks at his watch, and -w.onders the Evening Papers are so late. At about five o'clock, in comes the servant, trembling for his life,.with a heap ofwet lour- nals,—" heavy wet" indeed it 'often is. Reader, have you seen a pack of ill-mannered hounds at. feeding-time ?—we say ill-mannered bounds,- because 'hounds 'properly-kept :conduct themselves_on such oecasioni With infinitely more decorum than clothe members of When the servant.enteriwiththeir second meal. A spring 'is made' by airtlielieck,a-ncraittble takes place, andin a moment every print is snatched outof, the mans hand, and under a Quid- nunc's eye. Now; then, for the second course: Globe, "

Standard,

Sun, . Courier. These eight prints, Morning and evening, at the modepte rate of twopence per hour for each, if supplied to the gluttons by a newsman, would cost one shilling and fourpence a day;' but the economists spell them for about threepence halfpenny, and three or four hundred club for one print among them! Then en Sun- day they have—(rust of course)

The Spectator, The Bull, ,The Age,

The Atlas, The Examiner, The Observer, •

The News, The Sunday Times, The Intelligence, The Dispatch.

To buy these would cost six and elevenpence ; but by clubbing it, they do the proprietors at the rate of threepence halfpenny for the day. Now, we care not for the Daily Papers; it maybe very right to scramble, and struggle, and finesse, and manmuvre, and wait, and sigh, and spell for them—and to read them, when possessed, with forehead supported on the hands and elbows stuck for security upon the corners of the prints. But we uplift our voices against the sack- ing of the Weekly; and we recommend to the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, quocunque nomine gaudet, a tax. on the gobs- mouche kind, who cause a diminished sale of newspapers by club- bing to read them at joint-stock-mutton-chop companies. Any -man who takes into him more than three hundred yards of column daily, should be taxed at the rate of a fourpenny stamp for each hundred yards more. The servants, who must naturally despise such meanness, would inform, werea sufficient reward held out to them.

And how much more seemly it would be, were these gluttons to content themselves with one really good paper—the Spectator, for instance—and discuss it with their wives and families, at leisure and in peace, 'and domestic interchange of thoughts and sym- pathy; distinguishing here a good article, and there- a judicious point, and improving on the suggeStions, and praising the judg- tient and ability of the editor, and of one of his writers, most conspicuously excellent! , Quantoprastanti us esset-.-how Tatichttiorebecoming, and proper, and-decorous, and domestic,: wduld`thiS be than posting away to the public-house on a Sabbath forenoon, ravening to pillage the prints, greedy. of gossip, arid of slip-Slop, covetous Of chit-chat! Why are the poor deserted ladies,.ahd their blessed children, to be left without a newspaper, or to the choice of a bad one, because he who should he their guide, critic, and director, refuses to take his literary meal with them, and selfishly bolts off to' gormandize at the stupid club, where they stuff with paper to stupefaction, and cram with calumny till they are poisoned, and their morality is dead within them? Prudent mothers, whose daughters are wooed by yellow nabobs, observe whetherthe sun-parched suitor eats pastry; and if he does not, they judge him ineligible, on the presumption of desperate dyspepsia. With similar nicety of discretion, parents should as- certain whether their would-be son-in-law take in a Sunday print; and if he does not, they shoidd account him a club-haunter, and, as such, disqualified, by vicious custom, for domestic habits.