CLUB LIFE ON ITS SEAMY SIDE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2298, 17 March 1898, Page 50

CLUB LIFE ON ITS SEAMY SIDE.

Cranks, Bores, and Other Nuisances.

Feeling certain that there must be interesting material to be found in tbe curiosities of club life if they could only be inquired into, a representative applied for a little information to a certain man about town who belongs to many clubs and has been a visitor to most of the others.

THE. NAVAL CAPTAIN AND HIS YAHNS

" Ob, yes," replied the individual in question, " there are bores and cranks without number at clubs, you may be sure. Now at one that I go to pretty often there is an old naval officer who looks in regularly at 5 o'clock, cits down near anyone whom he knows, however slightly, and at once begins a sea yarn. He has a peculiarly high falsetto voice, which is distinctly audible all over the room, and 'carries' so well that ibis quite impossible to jgnore the fact that Captain So-and-So is telling one of ths same old sea stories.

" Nor can he be stopped. It is no use for the c-pwillirg auditor to pretend to read or to afiecb lo eater into conversation with another member. Rising from the seat is equally of no uae, for the captain rises too, still talking, and has been known to follow a man all over the club stiil reeling out the yarn. The only way to put an end to the nuisance, short of insulting him openly, is to leave the club, and the result ia that when the captain appears there is usually a stampede among his friends and acquaintances.

UNABLE TO EXIST WITHOUT NOISE.

•' Most clubs are troubled with noisy men, who do everything with a crash, as it were — stamp about the rooms, fling down newspapers, much to their datriment, as if {scorpions were wrapped up in them, sit down as if they wished to crack the furniture, get up as if propelled by an explosion, and talk loud andf big, chiefly about their own achievements. If; is characteristic of them fchat they are just as noisy in the morning room, where silence iB requested, as in the emoking room, where it is not. " They seem to be never quite, so happy as

when half a dozen members are glaring indignant surprise and disgust at them, and it is supposed that they reach their height of earthly bliss when they have. goaded some quiet member to instruct the servant to remind them that in that room • silence is requested.' Then they rise explosively, and bang out of the rooms with leud esclamations about ' eld fogies ' and other rude expressions. Oh, yes, there are several clubs which would be greatly improved if a clean sweep could be made of the noisy men.

PECULIARLY IRRITATING- TO READERS

"Another kind of nuisance at one of my club 3 is an old gentleman who is affected with an intermittent sniff of unusually high lone and power. He gives a constant; succession of double-barrelled sniffs, which are peculiarly irritating to anyone who is reading. So penetrating is the sound that it gets on to the nerves, and the reader discovers that ho has.lo3t the thread of his subject, and ia mentally timing the sniffs. Unluckily, the affection is not due to a temporary catarrh. It is chronic, and the unfortunate eld person fires his minute guns, so to frpeak, as" regularly in the summer as in the winter.

" Then there are the members who go to sleep and snore. Others seizs on fire or six papers at once, and keep the rest in hand while they read one. Others make a practice of pocketing the club stationery. Others, again, carry cf£ the club novels to ' finish at home.'. But perhaps the most objectionable are those who scold the servants, in spite of the rule that complaint should be made to the secretary only.

" A very singular accident happened at one of my clubs. It possesses bedrooms, which are approached by a lift, which formerly the occupants used to work themselves. This plan was given up because one day a member going out of his room pulled up the lift, and then remembering some forgotten object, went back to his room. On his return the lift bad been removed to another storey, and he appears nob to have izoiiced this, bul-, walkiog into the well, was kilisd by the fal!. TUBNED INTO A TEMPORARY HOSPITAL.

"At this same club not lon^r ago a member was se:zad suddenly with a fir, and the doctor being summoned declared that it would not be safe to move him. He was taken to one of the bedrooms, and remained there for several months. A very similar event happened at another club wheia there were no bedrooms, and an impromptu sickroom was fitted up in one of the cardroom?, in order to meat the requnements of the case. It will scarcely be believed tbat one or two of the whist-playing fraternity made this diversion of the room from its ordinary use a cause of formal complaint to the committee.

"Many folk suppose that clubs are always homes of good feeling and good fellowship, but this is frequently far from the case. There is a story of two members of a club who were sitting side byvside on one sofa in the smoklcg room and were- not formally acquainted. Ono made some remark to the other. Ths 'latter rose without reply, rang the bell, and said to the waiter : l Tell that member that I do ret know him. 1

THE UNSOCIABLE SIDE OF CLUB LIFE.

"It is a curious illustration of the unsociable side of club life that there is one small cluo where it is c the thir-g ' for every member to be sociable and to converse with the others, regardless of introductions, and that clubmen say of that body, ' Ob, yes ; but they are all Bohemians there.' Matters have even goce further than mere unsociability. On. one occasion two promineut members of a leading club fought with fisticuflia in tho smoking room on the subject of a lady, and were only N separated with much difficulty by their friends.

" At another club, which rejoices in large grounds, one member attacked" another with his fists in sight of half London society, and again the cause of the contest was a lady.

BLACK SHEEP SOMETIMES FIND ENTRANCE.

" The committee of a certain club had a disagreeable experience not long ago. A candidate was proposed and seconded by members of absolutely unexceptionable position, and elected. Later it was discovered that he had no right to the name he was proposed under, that his accouut of himself v?aa absolutely false, and that hs was really wanted by the police for an offence committed some time before.

"The committee verified the latter facf, and then removed his name from the club list, but the proposer and seconder must have passed a very uncomfortable time when they were called upon lo explain how it was that they had made themselves responsible for such a person.

"Many members dine regularly at their clubs, and the habits of some of them are very curious. Afc one of my clubs there is an old gentleman who always begins his dinner with a dczen oysters, which he orders specially. The way thi3 was brought to my notice was that one day, seeing him eating bis oysters, I ordered some, too, and found there were cone. I heard that he absorbed his oysters ali through the period of the typhoid scare, and when natives were out of season he -ordered foreigners or blue points."