FROM A CLUBMAN'S CHAIR

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19835, 26 June 1934, Page 13

FROM A CLUBMAN'S CHAIR

BACK TO CHIVALRY

ORDEAL BY WINEDRINKING (Specially written for “ The Timaru Herald ” by Charles Martin.) LONDON, May 17. It would be hard to find a more typical example of the English sporting gentleman than Lord Lonsdale. But somehow I had never suspected in him the strain of fantasy that shows itself in his latest enterprise. He wants to get a million people to sign a pledge. Not, I hasten to add, a pledge of teetotalism. Lord Lonsdale wants us to roli up and sign a pledge of politeness and courtesy in all things. He has, in fact, founded a League of Chivalry.

Defending the Ladies. It is a long and comprehensive pledge you have to sign if you aspire to Lord Lonsdale’s ideal of chivalry. First of all you promise to “defend the just action and quarrel of all ladies of honour, of all true and friendless widows, of orphans and maidens of good fame.” A noble ideal. But I cannot help thinking that maidens now are a good deal less helpless than they were in knightly days, and may not show as much gratitude to their would-be defenders. Secondly, you have to be something of a Freemason. For the pledge enjoins you to “uphold the noble state of chivalry” and to “help and succor those of the same order.”

Knights of The Road. The end of the pledge plunges plump into modernity. “I shall do nothing as a horseman, a motorist, a cyclist or a pedestrian.” swears the knight of 1934, “to cause fear or anxiety in other users of the King’s highway, or to imperil their lives. As an airman, I shall take my knightly code of courtesy into the skyways with me.” I have nothing but praise for that; and I imagine it is going to be the hardest part of the pledge to keep. The young knight in a high-powered sports car will often be tempted to forget his oath. Incidentally, every habitual race-goer will have noticed how smartly Lord Lonsdale’s famous Rolls-Royce always makes the first get-away from the crowded car park. Noises Instead of Speeches. An artist was telling me the other evening of a queer London Club which I imagine very few people know anything about. It is called the London Sketch Club; but despite the harmlesssounding name, it is decidedly not a place for conventional people. My sympathies were enlisted at once when I heard that the club has an absolute ban on after-dinner speeches. But what do the members do instead? They set up a chorus of caterwauls over the dinner-table —for each has to make the most horrible noise he can think of in honour of the chairman. Dressed As Tramps. No, I fear the Sketch Club’s weekly dinner is no place for the staid and conventional West End clubman. Still less would he care to attend the club’s annual “Tramp Supper,” at which all the members have to appear dressed as hobos. For the rest, they entertain one another after dinner with boxing or fencing bouts and impromptu theatrical turns. Evidently all these bohemian and athletic distractions do not interfere with serious work, for fourteen Sketch Club members (or one-fifth of the total membership) are exhibitors in this year’s Royal Academy. Several others are highly-paid poster artists, whose work adorns every hoarding in Britain. Beefsteak and True Blue. Passing from the very modern to the very ancient, I hear that there have been difficulties in two of Cambridge’s historic clubs, the Beefsteak and the True Blue. Both of them are about 200 years old, and both were threatened with collapse because the undergraduates could not afford to keep them going. But now the Beefsteak, at any rate, has been rescued by the undergraduate Earl of Ranfurly. who has taken over its presidency. “Exclusive” is certainly the right word to describe the Beefsteak. It meets only once or twice a year, for dinner; and there are generally only four resident members. But a number of old members who have left the University usually turn up to prevent the occasion from being a four-man show. Can You Drink Claret? Can you drink a pint and a half of claret in twenty seconds? No pausing for breath; no savouring of the bouquet. If you can do this, you stand at least a chance of being a member of the other old Cambridge dining club, the True Blue. But the True Blue is exclusive in other matters besides drinking prowess, with the result that it, too, has fallen on evil times. But Cambridge does not want to see such an old institution disappear, and there is hope that some well-to-do undergraduate (with the claret-drinking qualifications) will step in and save it. Caravan Holidays. On an excursion into Sussex last week I was struck by the popularity of caravans. The sunshine has brought them out earlier this year, and all over the Downs there were little camps centred round caravans. They were motor caravans, of course —or more often trailers attached to cars. A friend who goes in for this kind of recreation tells me that trailers are very cheap this year. You can buy one with berths for two for as little as £75. People who are prepared to pay more for luxury can get veritable homes on wheels, equipped even with heating apparatus for cool nights. Modern Snuff-Takers. Very few men nowadays take snuff. A year or so ago there was a transient vogue for it among some of the “Bright Young Things” of the West End, who excused their eccentricity by claiming that snuff possessed prophylactic properties against colds and influenza. But that craze soon passed. Fleet Street, where printers are not allowed to smoke at their work, is about the only place in London where there is a regular sale for snuff. The House of Commons, like a newspaper composing room, is another place where smoking is forbidden, but snuff-taking allowed. But I do not think there is any member of the present House who practises the habit. The Hon. Francis Rodd, Lord Rennell’s heir, is almost alone among wellknown men who take snuff. Not long ago he told a Judge, from the witnessbox in a court of law: “I take snuff frequently and constantly.” He certainly looks very healthy on it.