6 JULY 1907, Page 11

On Monday the Union Jack Club was opened by the

King in the presence of the Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales. The club, of which the foundation-stone was laid three years ago by the Prince of Wales, is for the use of soldiers, sailors, and marines, and is established in memory of those who lost their lives in the South African and China Campaigns. Its position opposite Waterloo Station, through which such vast numbers of soldiers and sailors pass in the year, was most happily chosen. A man can live and board at the club for about two shillings a day. The dining-room holds about three hundred men, and there is a reading-room, a large billiard-room, baths, and two hundred bedrooms. A hundred and fifty more bedrooms are to be added. Of those already in use, some were given by private persons, and many by regiments and ships' companies. During the last few days before the opening of the club there was a munificent shower of subscriptions, chiefly obtained through the instrumentality of the Daily Mail, which opened a specials fund for the purpose, and the King was able to announce that the capital outlay of 280,000 had been subscribed, and that the club started free of debt. We heartily wish the club the useful and prosperous career it deserves. None of the sub- scribers' money is spent in vain which makes the soldier's lot comparable in all the amenities of life with that of the