QUEEN OF NIGHT CLUBS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20028, 18 August 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

QUEEN OF NIGHT CLUBS.

[NOTORIOUS MRS. MERRICK,. •FLOUTING OF THE LAW. SIX* MONTHS' IMPRISONMENT. 31OTHEE-IN-LAW OF TWO PEERS. Mrs. Ivate Merrick. " Queen of the Night Clubs," in London was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in the second division at the Bow Street Police Court on June 22. She was charged with sell- ' ing intoxicants at the Cecil Club, formerly the Forty-three Club, in Gerrard Street, without a license, and also with supplying liquor after permitted hours. The charges followed a raid on the club by the " Flying Squad." One of the most remarkable personalities in the night life of the West End, Mrs. Merrick is an Irishwoman, who has countered the licensing laws in London from time to time during the past eight years. She had acquired the title of " Queen of the Night Clubs." She has frequently been fined sums varying from £25 to £450 for selling drink after hours at dance clubs, and has also served six • months' imprisonment in the second diyision of Holloway for the same offence. Mrs. Merrick starts and conducts one danco club after another as they are successively closed by pohce action, gathering round her a well-to-do clientele, which has included peers, service officers, actors, artists and . millionaires. Her daughter, Dorothy, married Lord de Clifford, and another daughter, May, married the Earl of Kinnoull.

" Futility ol the Law." Summonses against 13 men and nine ». women for consuming drinks at the club wero dealt with, the penalty in most cases being a £2 2s fine and £1 Is costs. Counsel for the Commissioner of Police said it. was no exaggeration to say that Mrs. Merrick was the most inveterate breaker of laws in regard to licensing matter's in clubs that the police had to deal Svith. in London. Counsel for the defence stated that Mrs. Merrick would plead guilty to summonses relating to tho supply of liquor without a license, and it was intimated that the other summonses would be withdrawn. 'As showing the absolute futility of " the present state of the law in regard to clubs, said counsel, although this raid took place on May 24, on June 1 at that court a new club was registered under tho name of the Richmond Club, its premises being one room on the second floor at Gerrard Street, Mrs. Merrick had leased the room to her son-in-law, the Earl of Kinnoull, for a term of years and the club was to be conducted as a members' club. The rules were a verbatim copy of those of the Cecil Club." Ciub Disqualified for I"ive Years. It was stated by counsel that it was not a case for imprisonment. Mrs. Merrick was 60 years of age, and was suffering from a form oi heart trouble. Tho six months' imprisonment which she had undergone previously was no light thing for a woman in her position in life. "She had learned her lesson, and he was authorised to say that if she were spared imprisonment she would refrain from any further activities in connection with night clubs of that kind. Referring to the statement that she was the most inveterate law-breaker in the metropolis with regard to clubs, counsel remarked that until this case was brought she had conducted

the club without complaint. The magistrate, Mr. Fry, said he had to deal with a woman who had in re-

cent? years paid fines amounting to £I3OO. " I know nothing about the defendant," Mr. Fry, coatiued, "but I have to deal simply with a person who has contrived with considerable resolution to continue to break the law." He passed sentence of six months' imprisonment in the second division, allowed costs of 60 guineas •against defendant, and ordered that the club should be struck off the register and disqualified for five years. Second division prisoners such as Mrs. Merrick do not have to associate with other prisoners, and she will bo allowed to receive visitors. She is not restricted to the ordinary prison fare. Woman's Remarkable Career. Details of the life, character and ramifications of Sirs. Merrick are given by a writer in the Weekly Dispatch. He says:— There surely was never such a puzzling mixture of good and bad, kindness and harshness, avarice and generosity, simplicity and . sophistication, prodigality and thrift as make up the Irish character of the notorious Mrs. Merrick. For ten years this complex personality, with her odd capacity for business, alternating with an innate motherliness and sincere and simple homeliness and love of domestic life, has plied her illegal trade in the West End, at one moment mulcting callow " bloods" of the 'varsity and young men about town of their wealth, the next extending a helping hand to the tiredoyed dance partners whom she employed at j her clubs for the amusement of -"guests." Mrs. Merrick has mado hundreds of pounds a week, by flagrant and persistent violation of the law. At the same time she has spent hundreds in making life happier for the harrowing cases of hardship and misfortune that inevitably must come the way of one whose work is so closely linked with the flotsam and jetsam of the underworld. In all she has controlled over a dozen clubs, including an establishment in Montemarte, in Paris, and one on the river at Maidenhead. Succession of Clubs and Raids. This energetic woman was thrown on her own resources some years ago with .six children to support and decided on u series of dance clubs, which may or may not have started with all due regard to the law, but at any rate ended, one by one in distaster. It is nearly ten years since Mrs. Merirck's venure, " Dalton's" in Leicester Square, was raided, closed, and described as London's worst " sink of iniquity." Then followed a quick succession of clubs that ended in police raids, and court sequels in the way of penalties that, in addition to fines amounting to over £IOOO, disqualified the premises for club purposes. But still this amazing woman continued her activities heedless of the consequences. She must have made thousands by her illicit sales of drink. Yet in her own house it was her boast that " You can never get a drink here unless you bring it! " If a luncheon party was given alcoholic liquor was conveyed from one of her clubs the day before the guests were due. Mrs. Merrick's daughters, who assisted her in her enterprises, had clothes that any society debutante might envy, but while they dressed in gowns from the best Paris houses, this remarkable head of the familv, who supplied money to them so liberally, never bought herself a frock from one year s end to the other, her hats were shabby, and her shoes down-at-heel Yet JU T tIr T S ?/i rri , ed over a thousand pounds back with.her to her imposing houso in Regent's Park—the nightly takings at her several clubs. It was her custom to walk home if the weather was fine. , P e ""y saved is a penny earned,'' sne would say, '

On most mornings the rather pathetic figure of this controller-in-chief of London's night life could be seen about 8.30 walking up the broad path of Portland Place. After breakfast she would check her takings and one or another of her many daughters would pay this into the bank. Although she kept several servants, of ceremony she would have none. Her tastes, and those of her family, are of the simplest, and so are their pleasures, j' When day dawns the whirl and; madjazz night-clubs are' as a dream, and in the restful peace of Kegent's • Park the " Queen of Clubs " takes her slumbers. Meanwhile her sons and daughters enjoy the normal social round of a middleclass family. J. canter in "the park, tennis, an informal tea and a shopping round fill the day, and at 10 p.m. punctually the mistress of the house is awakened to resume her duties at her clubs.

Ono or another of Mrs. Merrick's daughters takes it in turn to accompany her mother; the former to create a sociable atmosphere among the club's guests, the latter to take up her stand behind the little " peep-hole " of. the " office " and exercise her eagle scrutiny and the sliding scale of admission fees as the club fills up. " Aunt Kate." as they were wont affectionately to term her, was uncanny in her summing-up of her " clients/' their means their honesty and other points it was to pay the exorbitant prices she charged, necessary for her to know before taking any risk of admission.

This "Queen of the Night" reigned in a world of her own—a world that wakes xip when the Joneses of the suburbs are locking up, and ends with the workers' trek to town. She had an insatiable desire for ■ the patronage of society at her clubs. A titled visitor would arouse in her a defer-

ence and geniality that was amusing. The best champagne and the finest foods would be best produced and the waiter would bo given a hint to award special attention to a noble client. Many distinguished personalities have visited Mrs. Merrick's clubs from time to time, and last year she gratified her social ambitions by opening a luxurious new club in the West End, in the vicinity of Regent Street, whose pretensions were beyond those of any of her previous ventures. The appointments of this club were the last word in luxury, the band one of the finest in London, the floor of glass, illuminated from beneath; the wine 6of the finest vintages that the cellar could produce, the clientele fashionable and exclusive. But it was not generally known that the notorious " Night Club Queen" pulled the strings of this particular establishment, which began its career contrary to the usual Merrick rule by being run as strictly and conventionally as any of the exclusive clubs of long standing. Two members of the Royal Family visited the club on more than one occasion, and stayed to a late hour, peers and politicians, society beauties and famous stars of musical comedy, even members of the judicial administration nightly met at the Silver Slipper. And then came the inevitable end—carelessness and indiscriminate admission of non-members, and a growing disregard for the law led to her downfall. Mrs. Merrick once described her former prison experience as "a perfect rest cure." She occupied herself in reading Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."