"Of all the modern schemes of Man
That time has brought to bear,
A plague upon the wicked plan,
That parts the wedded pair!
My wedded friends they all allow
They meet with slights and snubs,
And say, 'They have no husbands now,—
They're married to the Clubs!'"
The satire soon reached the stage. About five-and-twenty years since there was produced at the old wooden Olympic Theatre, Mr. Mark Lemon's farce, The Ladies' Club, which proved one of the most striking pieces of the time. "Though in 1840 Clubs, in the modern sense of the word, had been for some years established, they were not quite recognized as social necessities, and the complaints of married ladies and of dowagers with marriageable daughters, to the effect that these institutions caused husbands to desert the domestic hearth and encouraged bachelors to remain single, expressed something of a general feeling. Public opinion was ostentatiously on the side of the ladies and against the Clubs, and to this opinion Mr. Mark Lemon responded when he wrote his most successful farce."[23]
Here are a few experiences of Club-life. "There are many British lions in the coffee-room who have dined off a joint and beer, and have drunk a pint of port-wine afterwards, and whose bill is but 4s. 3d. One great luxury in a modern Club is that there is no temptation to ostentatious expense. At an hotel there is an inclination in some natures to be 'a good customer.' At a Club the best men are generally the most frugal—they are afraid of being thought like that little snob, Calicot, who is always surrounded by fine dishes and expensive wines (even when alone), and is always in loud talk with the butler, and in correspondence with the committee about the cook. Calicot is a rich man, with a large bottle-nose, and people black-ball his friends.