SIR,—I am sure I am only one of many who
must appreciate the vigour with which Mrs. Lindsay has presented our predicament. The professional class retains the social conventions which make it impos-
sible for its young men and women to meet on street-corners, and yet has ceased to entertain widely enough to supply them with plentiful introductions to each other. At the same time subscriptions to local tennis-clubs or to London clubs are so high that for many of us, whose studies, training or work take us away from home for part of the year, so that we cannot use them regularly, they are an unjustified extravagance. The casual nature of our attendance prevents us from participating fully in the programme, of such local societies as do exist.
Any clubs which attempt to cater for our particular problems must be cheap, and cannot in my opinion rely on weekly meetings, which are impracticable whenever members cannot guarantee a regular attendance. Yet it would not be impossible to form clubs which would combine a carefully-regulated membership with a loosely-knit organisation. Such a club could provide each member yearly with a list on which the names, addresses, telephone-numbers, occupations and hobbies of all his fellow-members would appear, and, as member- ship would be only by invitation of a certain proportion of the club, any member would then be able to ask any other to snake up a party or share a pursuit in the reasonable expectation of finding a congenial companion. The club could be united once or twice a year for dinner in an unpretentious London restaurant. With so simple an organisa- tion it should not be necessary to charge a yearly subscription much above a guinea, even including the cost of the dinners. A few clubs of this type already exist for men, but those of us who are ineligible for these would prefer an equal membership of men and women, especially as this would make it easy to get up to those gramophone dances and tennis-cum-bathing parties which are all too rare nowadays. There are no limits to the interest and amusement which could be supplied by a " Now and Then " club.—Yours faithfully,
ELIZABETH M. STEVEN.
Paddockhurst, 17 Silver Lane, Purley, Surrey.
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