Second mansion of sad-coloured brick with stone
dressings, and the lamp before the door was
generally in a state of compound fracture from
the exuberant playfulness of late-returning
guests. "Lamp-glass broken, one pound five,"
was a common item in Mrs. Vash's long bills.
When the late-returning lodgers didn't smash the
lamp, they smashed the fanlight, or the soda-
water tumblers, or the coffee-room panels, or
the waiters' heads. They were always breaking
something, and everything was charged in the
bill. You entered Gamridge's by a long, low,
oblique passage, seemingly specially designed
for the benefit of gentlemen who came home
late, overtaken with liquor, and swerved in their
gait. They could not well tumble down in their
progress along that sporting passage. The
coffee-room was almost devoid of decoration.
Had it been papered, the gentlemen would have
torn the paper off; had there been a pier-glass,
somebody would have smashed it, but, as pier-
glasses then cost twenty pounds, the item might
have been subject to inconvenient dispute in the
bill. So, to be on the safe side, Mrs. Vash
provided her guests with a thick circular mirror
in a nubbly frame, which defied even a poker.
En revanche, the gallant youths who frequented
the coffee-room had scratched their names on
it, as well as on the window-panes, in a hundred
places, with their diamond rings.

There was an immense dumb-waiter. The
tables were of mahogany, brightly polished;
wax candlesticks, in silver sconces, were always
used, to the disdainful exclusion of gas—and
with one of those same candlesticks many a tall
fellow had been laid low—but the floor was
sanded, and triangular spittoons were dispersed
about. It was the oddest combination of luxury
and coarseness, of a club-room and a pot-house.

In this room, a dozen of the greatest dandies
in England were assembled. Some had fifty
thousand a year, and some had nothing, and
owed thrice fifty thousand pounds; but, poor
or rich, all were fashionable. It was a congregation
of prodigal sons and prodigal fathers, but
fathers and sons were both accustomed to sit in
the high places, and to have room made for them.

WORKING MEN'S CLUBS.

The mechanic is "a very clubable man."
The man of wealth and leisure joins a club for
luxury's sake; the middle-class man, for the
most part, does not belong to one at all, as
his life is pretty nearly divided between his
place of business and his family; but the working
man is almost sure to be a member of some
benefit society, or other body, which requires a
place of meeting, and he has a natural and
proper appetite for social intercourse, which
cannot be indulged in his small, home.
Practically, he has always had his club, holding
his business meetings and jovial reunions at a
public-house. This has led to a great deal of
unnecessary drinking, and the object of Working
Men's Clubs is to provide every facility
offered by the public-house, without the temptations
inseparable from the landlord's rooms.

The Working Men's Club is, in some measure,
an offspring of the mechanics' institute of thirty
years ago, but it proposes to do both more and
less. Though including classes for educational
purposes, it is not so severely scientific as its
predecessor, and it has a greater eye to recreation
and business. Originating in the Temperance
movement, it has now outgrown all
sectional limitations, and, while powerfully aiding
the reformation of the working man, where he
is prone to excess, it is not a mere agent or
instrument of the teetotallers. One of the earliest
of these institutions was the Stormont House
Working Men's Association, started at Notting
Hill in 1853; but this, as well as "the Hall,"
situated in the district commonly called the
Kensington Potteries, is rather a centre of
religious and temperance action than a club in the
ordinary sense of the word. At the former,
smoking and games are prohibited, while the
latter has now no regular members, but is
simply let out for the use of benefit and other
societies, for the delivery of lectures, for prayer
meetings and devotional services, and for
occasional dioramas, &c. The Hall was set on foot
in April, 1861, and for some time was more
club-like in its character; but the weekly, quarterly,
and yearly subscription system was not
found to answer, and is now abandoned. Ten
years earlier, some of the working men of Soho
and the vicinity started a club on teetotal
principles, which failed on account of the
restrictions it imposed. The more active
members of this body, however, have since set
up another club in Crown-street, St. Giles's, on
a freer and more inviting plan, and this is still
battling with the difficulties which generally
beset such attempts in their early days. The
Rye Harbour Club, situated some two miles
from Rye, was also one of the first established
of these institutions. It was projected in 1855,
and the club-house was erected in the following
year, at an expense of one thousand pounds,
which was entirely borne by Mr. W. D. Lucas-
Shadwell, of Fairlight, near Hastings. The
persons for whose benefit it was designed were
the men employed at the harbour works. The
house contains dormitories for such of the
members as choose to use them, and the
building is surrounded by a well-kept flower-garden.
Temperance and religious meetings are held
here, and discussions are allowed, but the
subjects must be submitted beforehand to the
President, the Rev. Mr. Churton, examining chaplain
to the Bishop of Chichester, and vicar of Icklesham.
The same Mr. Shadwell has recently
interested himself in the creation of a club at
Hastings, which has this peculiar and very
democratic feature—that all the gentlemen
members, including the mayor, are regular
weekly subscribers at twopence.

In 1855, a club was established at Littlemore,
near Oxford, by the Rev. G. W. Huntingford,
the government of which, as that gentleman