MYSTERIOUS CLUB

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 1210, 7 January 1925, Page 12

MYSTERIOUS CLUB

QUEER LONDON VENTURE. MAGISTRATE'S EXPERIENCE. In the disused coal cellar of a house somewhere in the East End flourishes one of the most interesting and extraordinary of London's varied list of clubs. Composed exclusively of girls who have been in the hands of the police, the club's whereabouts is a close-ly-guarded secret. Mr Clarke Hall, the magistrate at Old Street,- told the story of the club at the annual meeting of the Police Court Mission. He had received, he said, an invitation to take tea with the members, on condition that he came alone, and did not ask the girls' names. Each girl was to wear a flower, by the name of which he could address her.

On a certain afternoon, he added, "I went to a particularly dismal slum in the East End, and there, in a disused coal cellar that had been quite tastefully decorated, I met some 20 or 30 girls. They gave me tea and we sat round the fire and talked. It was a club known as the 'K.O's.' 'K.O.' stood for King's Own, and every one o? the girls who was a member of the club considered herself a'King's Own," in that she had enjoyed the King's hospitality at some period or other of her career. We talked on many subjects, and now I often go down to see these girls. "They were nearly all of them outcasts from their homes owing to their previous bad conduct, and nearly all of them lived in a house they call 'Park Lane.' "

Further particulars of the queer club were gleaned from a man who has grown grey in the service of London's underworld. Ho helped the girls to found the club.

"The girls named the club themselves," he said, "it was to be known as the Kindness to Others Club—the K.O. Club. And then one of the girls exclaimed 'The King's Own Club,' thinking of the regimental application.

" 'Why not the King's Own?' said another girl, more nimble witted. 'We are the King's Own. We go to Court, and stand in a Royal Box, and before us is a king—the magistrate who is surrounded by his courtiers.' And so the name stuck." The club in its short existence, has had its romance. Two or three of the girls have married very happily, and in one case Mr Clarke Hall was invited to the wedding—and later to a christening ! The girls who marry never lose touch with the club.