Ladies’ Clubs and Games.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 15, 14 April 1906, Page 61

Ladies’ Clubs and Games.

It conies as a severe shock to many, even in these tolerant times, to read of a billiard championship at a ladies’ club. Yet women have been players and clubs have had tables for years, and there is nothing new to report. When half a column of serious comment is devoted to the account of a club championship in one of the evening papers, the idea is invested with an altogether disproportionate importance, and the scoffer has his chance. Again, the much-maligned “new woman” phase of which we have heard so much and seen so little, is revived to be reviled at. And. of course, every clubwoman stands condemned in this raillery against “modernised womanhood.” Not that clubwomen mind—they have been forced to cultivate tin* contempt bred of familiarity, and they know that all the people whose opinion counts are not misled by these periodical denouncements.. In fact, most clubwomen thought that they and their doings had been relegated to the realms of things “ordinary.” and the wild speculations anent their habits abandoned. It appears, however, that a large section of the public still speculate on the score of her occupation, ascribe to her. as a whole, vices innocent and serious, and lay to her charge all the weaknesses and foolishness of her sex. It would indeed be interesting to convince these misguided critics of -the clubwoman’s innocence of the charges they make against her. She invariably does play billiards if she be a member of a club which offers its members the privilege. She may even be the billiard champion of her club, but her critics ascribe a far greater importance to the honour than she does. She plays seriously enough when she plays, and she has a perfect understanding of every sporting principle, but billiards will never be anything to her but a pleasurable recreation. She is keenly alive tc the advantages of physical exercise the game affords; she knows that no game gives more to grace in carriage and pose, and. if the full truth were really known, many of the condemned players think less of their skill than of their d e.tty hands. This, however, is as much a libel against the average clubwoman as the former indictment. One result of the inclusion of billiards in the ladies’ club course is that at home girls can give their brothers and friends a thoroughly good game. The games at the club have, in nine cases out of ten. no more serious import than this. As for playing for money, the practice scarcely exists in even what have been termed the “go-ahead clubs.’’ Members of the fashionable clubs are. as a rule, far too occupied in other ways to give time to billiards, and members of the professional clubs are far too busy. The table at the Lyceum Club, for instance, is never urgently in demand, though

in use practically every evening and all evening. The Bath Club has its billiardroom specially reserved for the ladies,

but. in or out of the -eason. there is never a rush for the tables. Only a small minority of the ladies' clubs are able to give up the space to billiards, but the card table is common to all. And thus all clubs are brought into the <langer-zo*ie, the influence of which, we are told, is ruining or going to ruin the women of to-day. As in many another scare, the chief danger lies in the publicity given to the* critics’ cry rather than in the evil, which they actually encourage by their concern. Bridge tournaments, it is true, have been added to the excitements oi the up-to-date club-. Many young women will plead guilty to whole afternoons spent in contesting the honours of the tournament, but, again, these young women do not constitute the average upon which broad deductions must be founded. The average member is interested in the play, as the average person is interested in a game of progressive whist, but before she can be persuaded to give up her time and the charm of five o'clock tea for the excitement of the bridge table bridge will be out of date, and the club-- will be libelled for something else. In the clubs where bridge is countenance! a limit is fixed, usually at penny points, but the majority content themselves at fid a him I red, which surely releases them from the slightest suspicion of gambling. Even at these stakes the card-rooms are not wont to be crowded. The private bridge party is the one to be condemned. There the stakes are at the players’ option, and nowadays women are. it is true, developing very inflamed ideas as to stake limits. These games are not so innocert in purport as the fair players would have the world suppose, but that is another subject. I'o return to the clubs. Apart from the sporting clubs, devoted to tennis, golf, badminton. and the like, the average club has nothing else to offer its members but either billiards or cards. Draughts and dominoes may flourish in the teashops. but they are not countenanced in clubland The snicking lounge has its attraction, the reading-rooms and the reference-rooms all their old importance, and the interests oi all are still, despite the counter-claims of the card-rooms and the billiard table centred in the tearooms. The truth of the whole matter is clubs for women are no longer merely fashionable. They are being used by the women who actually need them, and of these none abuse their privileges. An enormous boon would be conferred upon women generally if the existing clubs could Im induced to devote the space at their command to the uses so admirably embodied in the Bath Club. Besides the advantages of a splendid swimming bath, the members of this fortunate club can command the luxury of Turkish and other baths. They have a suite of capi-tally-equipped reception, club, and dining rooms, with card and billiard rooms, and as well, in the limitation of their area of a quarter of an acre, five courts and a rifle range.