Commercial Club

“ As a matter of fact there is scarcely a club house in any prominent commercial center of the Union in which there is not an apartment curtained from the vulgar gaze, where play is not carried on for high stakes. And these very gentlemen who play a friendly game rarely suspect that into their midst there is sometimes introduced a professional, who not only wins a handsome stake for himself, but also assists in recouping losses sustained by the gentlemen who introduced him. ”

“ It is an eccentric and Bohemian club, of which the absolute condition of membership lies in this, that the candidate must have invented the method by which he earns his living. It must be an entirely new trade. ”

“ To give a Club its peculiar “cachet”—its, so to say, trade-mark—you require a class of men who make the Club their home, and whose interest it is that all the internal arrangements should be as perfect, as well ordered, and frictionless as may be. ”

“ The motto of the Club is 'small profits and quick returns.' We find no difficulty in trading. As we carry on business on the most economical principles, we can quote prices even cheaper than the Stores. ”

“ It is only for short intervals that the customers in broking offices can be busy. At other times they must lounge, and smoke; and chat, and read, and watch the board. A good-sized concern may easily have two hundred running accounts. Can you imagine a livelier, more entertaining place of gossip? You can have stocks, horses, commerce, law, medicine, small talk, art, science, the theater and religion in fifteen minute causeries, every day if you like. You have the milieu of every club in New York and the Waldorf café massed in one elegant composition in more than one broker’s parlor. ”

“ It was she who originated and propounded to the club the idea of a stock company of women for the building of a permanent woman's club home, which building idea was afterwards extended by the stock company to facilities for revenue other than that derived from the club. Although all members of the club, the company is entirely distinct from it. ”

“ If a tailor be short of employment, he has only to consult a landlord over a bottle, and by their joint powers, they give birth to a “Clothes Club,” where every member is supplied with a suit to his taste, of a stipulated price. These are chiefly composed of bachelors, who wish to shine in the eyes of the fair.
A bricklayer stands at the head of the “Building Club,” where every member perhaps subscribes two guineas per month, and each house, value about one hundred pounds, is balloted for as soon as erected. ”

“ The good that these clubs have already accomplished is a sure indication of the great benefits that will come to each member if he remains loyal to his organization and does all within his power to promote the interests of the whole. I have attended meetings of many of these clubs, upon many occasions, and I know whereof I speak when I say that "in union there is strength." Is there any better place to discuss the subject of supply and demand, the subject of prices, the merits of plants and cut flowers, than a florists' club? ”

“ In the Club our hero revelled awhile under the protection of Sir Charles Sterling, and the petting of peers, Members of Parliament, and loungers who swarm therein. Certain gentlemen of Stock Exchange mannerism and dressiness gave the protege the go-by, and even sneered at those who noticed him with kindness. But then these are of the men with whom every question is checked by money, and is balanced on the pivot of profit and loss. ”

“ The thought of seeing " her " miserable and their children hungry whilst he himself is helpless to assist, must always be one of the most harrowing things to a careful young artisan, with visions of a happy little home in the near future. There is, however, another view of the club which appeals with almost equal force to our young artisan just out of his apprenticeship and finding himself in possession of an income nearly double that to which he has been accustomed. The Trade Union Meeting House is the recognised club for the men in the craft, and thus presents many social attractions. ”

“ UNPLEASANT COMPANY.
[274]
"FRAGI AGRESTES."
"LET'S have a club," said Will Post to a group of his schoolmates; "we can meet once a week in some place, and have a motto, and a password, and everything, just like the big clubs."
"Agreed!" shouted the boys. "What shall we call ourselves?"
"The Do-Nothing Club," some one suggested; "we aren't going to do anything, only have all the fun we can." ”

“ On some such lines as these we must look for the solution of the club problem in England. Any measure to be really effective must provide, first, that proprietary clubs and clubs financed by those interested in the sale of drink shall be treated exactly the same as public-houses. ”

“ Some English secretaries of legation and long-legged attachés, have indeed an ex-officio entry to these continental clubs, or “cercles,” where they come to lounge and yawn in the true Pall Mall fashion; but they soon grow tired of the hybrid places; and the foreigners who come to stare and wonder at them, go away more tired still, and, with droll shrugs, say, “Que c’est triste!” The proper club for a Frenchman is his café; for, without a woman to admire him or to admire, your Monsieur cannot exist ”

“ Some retained a supply of prostitutes. Many taverns had a rentable private room for the better-off to drink wine, have meals, meet friends, gamble, do business, and hold meetings of societies and clubs, especially political clubs. From this beginning sprang private clubs such as the Blue Stocking Club in 1750 and the Literary Club in 1764, Lloyd's for sale and insurance of ships in 1771, and the stock exchange in 1773. The Blue stocking Club was established by women who organized conversational parties with guests of intellect and wit. ”

“ There are four general Clubs held in a year, at which time they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire-maker or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other necessaries. ”

“ The very absence of the feeling that the club must make money, or must at least pay expenses, probably accounts for the long list of small clubs and board meetings which could almost as easily meet in the homes of members. ”

“ When modern improvements were first suggested in clubs, most of the old-fashioned members fought strenuously against them. The introduction of the electric light, for instance, was bitterly opposed; whilst the telephone seemed to not a few of the older generation an attempt to introduce mercantile outposts into the very heart of clubland. The old club-men at first hated, and afterwards feared, the encroachments of business methods into their kingdom. ”

“ Clubs, as far as my observation goes, are favourable to economy of time. There is a fixed place to go to, everything is served with comparative expedition, and it is not customary in general to remain long at table. ”

“ Citizens of the more fortunate states may not know of the mysteries of the clubs. In Vincent’s the only bars are beer bars, and only in the clubs can a person get a drink, and only members are admitted. It is true that even such a small club as the Coq Bleu had thirty thousand members, and at a dollar a year that is a nice sideline. The little numbered membership cards cost a penny each for the printing, and the member wrote in his own name. ”

“ Of all places in the world, a club is the surest focus of speculation. You meet gentlemen there who hold stock in every line in the kingdom—directors, committee-men, and even crack engineers. I defy you to continue an altogether uninterested auditor of the fascinating intelligence of Mammon. ”

“ I want a club to take an occasional stranger into, for a drink, and to read the papers in, and sometimes to have a quiet meal in. Where do you think I should go? I want somewhere I needn't always be spick and span in, and somewhere I don't have to pay a vast sum. Alas, why are there no decent clubs? What do the jolly people all do? ”

“ In the first place, it should contain two or three well-known men to act as figureheads, their names being a guarantee for the social standing of the club. In the second, one or two members ought to be thoroughly conversant with business matters, and well fitted to deal with the details of club finance. And, lastly, a certain proportion of its members ought to be men well in touch with the life of the club, and therefore thoroughly acquainted with its needs. ”

“ And that they may keep up their price to encourage idleness rather than labour, if any one of their club is out of work, they give him a ticket and money to seek for work at the next town where a box club is, where he is also subsisted, suffered to live a certain time with them, and then used as before ; by which means he can travel the kingdom round, be caressed at each club, and not spend a farthing of his own or strike one stroke of work. ”

“ The modern club, sometimes proprietary, i.e. owned by an individual or private syndicate, but more frequently owned by the members who delegate to a committee the management of its affairs, first reached its highest development in London, where the district of St James’s has long been known as “Clubland”; but the institution has spread all over the English-speaking world. (2) Those clubs which have but occasional or periodic meetings and often possess no club-house, but exist primarily for some specific object. ”

“ The thing the book—between its two bits of pasteboard does on paper—a kind of listening together of capital and labor, the Look-Up Club of The Air Line League is planned to do in the nation at large and locally in ten thousand cities—capital, labor and the consumer listening to each other—reading the same book as it were over each other's shoulders, studying their personal interests together, working and acting out together the great daily common interest of all of us. ”

“ Having read its amount, he held it in his fingers, twisting it and turning it.
“You see, Frank,” he said, after thinking for a minute, [107] “the primary object of the club is not to be paid for what it spends—though that is an object—it’s to help fellows to get on their feet. Of you nineteen chaps who are in the house at present twelve are regularly paying for their board and lodging, and that pretty well carries us along. If there’s a deficit it’s covered by the back payments of men who’ve gone out and who are making up. ”

“ The League proposed is planned to operate in its national and local functions as a national Consumers' Club, with working branches in every town which shall be engaged in doing specific things every day toward making the employers and employees in that town listen to each other in the interests of the consumer public.
It is always to the interests of the consumer-public to see to it that people who have particular interests in a business should be compelled to listen to the others' interests. ”

“ But as there may be clubs that profess philanthropy when they mean murder, so there may be clubs that, without much profession of exalted benevolence, brotherly love, and such rodomontade, are really benefactors of mankind. The Political Economy Club was a club of this kind. Professor Bain, in his Life of James Mill, mentions an important service rendered to Free Trade by James Mill in being one of the founders of the Political Economy Club in 1821; an important event which should have been recorded in the Political Memoir prefixed to Mr. Villiers's Free Trade Speeches. ”

“ The club was managed by four stewards, and there was a suspicion that before a loan was obtained the person requiring it would be expected to treat those stewards, and do something for the benefit of the house in the way of drinking. As the sharing out took place three or four days before Christmas, there was also risk of the capital sum of a shareholder being squandered in drink at a time when it would be more than usually acceptable in the home. We therefore set to work to run Sharing Clubs on what we thought better lines. ”

“ The immediate object of the club, is the relief of sick or distressed artists of any nation, and in order to effect this purpose, each member pays a trifling annual subscription, whilst on a certain night in the year, there is a sale by auction, in the club-room, of sketches and drawings contributed by members, which are knocked down to the highest bidder. ”

“ This club is an exception to the general run of clubs in the world, for it has more money than it knows what to do with. The troublesome surplus in the bank is the only problem that bothers the board of directors, and it is bringing gray hairs to their devoted heads. ”

“ In proportion as this corporate brotherly spirit is evoked and cherished the club will not only be securing the best chance of permanence, but will be sure to do far greater good while it lasts than could have been effected by the most lavish expenditure of money or by any accumulation of mere teaching appliances. ”

“ As winter sets in, almost every provision-dealer, and other traders as well, proffers a compact to the public, which he calls a club, though it is more of the nature of a savings-bank, seeing that, at the expiration of the subscribing period, every member is a creditor of the shop to the amount of his own investments, and nothing more. ”

“ Success, despite the tempestuous history of the first six months of their existence, was staring the Morning Glories in the face. The club had come to stay, and a prosperous and useful future was assured. Prosperity meant that the treasury, among other things, had become more than a name, and the members of the club became possessed with a desire to spend the money that had been so laboriously earned, that was as burning as had been the desire to get it. ”