MIDSUMMER MADNESS FOR CLUBS.
Cenrarte gayly-disposed young gentlemen are (tarrying on a corre- spondence in the Morning Post, suggested by ideas more natural
than mature. They want the clubs of London to become the hosts in a, series of balls, for the benefit of London society and the foreign visitors. Now " club" is an expression of double meaning; like some terms in natural history, it signifies both the habitat and the animated organism that dwells therein.; and hence the present mistake.
There are young members of clubs ; and it is quite natural that the propensity for dancing inherent in youthful calves should be tantalized by the' space and splendour which are wasted on the I scattered idling and undertoned twaddling of club habitues. Con- vertible capacity in a building is an attribute that excites all ardent minds : we remember a learned pedagogue from the sister island, " first flower of the earth," &c., who stood at the door of a disused stable and finished a rapid catalogue of all the purposes to which it. might be applied by exclaiming "A famous place for a chapel!" It is scarcely wonderful if any young gentleman, new to the glories of the drawingroom at the Reform Club, from which " A Polka- Dancer" writes, should long for a hop. Though it may be vulgar, it is natural.
But• he forgets that- the term club includes the living organism. Now the animated, part of a club is most unsuited for the function of host, especiallyin a promiscuous way. Certain professional and exclusive clubs may play the host on professional and exelnsive occasions, such as a dinner to a great general at a military club ; but even such entertainments are found to be troublesome: A dancing invasion would be as odious to old club- men as an irruption of ballet-girls. into the reading-room of the British Museum. Besides, it is a mistake to regard a club as a society : it is a, mere local aggregation of separate individuals— AVM separated mid shut up in the reserve and: exclusiveness of English polite life than the individual oysters on de saciVeilhil4111 To regard a club as a family, is about as wide of the meek ais if you took an oyster-bed for a bed of flowers or a reathetslieds tke irruption would be disagreeable to club members,, the reflex of tliat disagreeableness would be detestable to the visitors : a club tall would be merely a trap for catching strangers and subjecting them to the tortures of deliberate inhospitality. The suggestion would be alarming if it were not impracticable.
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