On the last night of the old year, club custom at the Players’ ordains that about midnight a loving-cup should be passed round amongst members, in order that they may drink to the memory of the founder.
“Ladies’ day” is an annual festival of this club, held on Shakespeare’s birthday—April 23rd—on which date a number of ladies, either connected with or interested in the stage, are entertained.
This and “founders’ night” are the only two functions held, and consequently invitations are very highly prized. Each member is allowed but two cards of admission.
Another Bohemian New York club is the Lambs. The funds to pay off a mortgage of 36,000 dollars on the club-house in West Thirty-sixth Street were raised in a highly characteristic manner. For the space of one week a company consisting entirely of stars—actors, musicians, and authors—formed themselves into a minstrel troupe and toured through eight cities, with the result that they made 67,000 dollars. Each member of this troupe on its dispersal received one dollar as a souvenir of his services.
The present club-house of the Lambs, at West Forty-fourth Street, cost no less than 300,000 dollars. It is a most luxurious building furnished with every modern convenience, and contains a theatre where the Lambs hold their famous Gambols, and where plays never performed elsewhere are played. Besides their private Gambols, the Lambs give an annual public Gambol at a New York Theatre, to see which the public can obtain tickets through members.
The Lambs are exceedingly charitable to any of their number who may be overwhelmed by misfortune or sickness, and, indeed, membership of the club has been said to constitute an insurance against adversity. Many a stricken actor has had reason to bless the club, which on one occasion, through a benefit performance organized in conjunction with the players, obtained a comfortable annuity for an actor who had been seized by an incurable malady.
Whilst hardly a club in the sense now usually understood, the Jockey Club possesses rooms at Newmarket, and a number of sporting prints are to be seen here. The most interesting relic in the possession of the club, however, is a hoof of Eclipse, formed into an inkstand. On the front are the royal arms in gold in high relief, and on the pedestal is the following inscription: “This piece of plate, with the hoof of Eclipse, was presented by His Most Gracious Majesty William the Fourth to the Jockey Club, May 1832.” This hoof was originally given as a prize in a Challenge race (rather like “The Whip”) run on Ascot Thursday. The King gave an additional £200, and there was a £100 sweepstake between members of the Jockey Club. It was run for soon after it was presented, in the year of the great Reform Bill, on the same afternoon that Camarine and Rowton ran a dead-heat for the Gold Cup, and over the same course. One subscriber scratched, and, of the other two, Lord Chesterfield, with the famous Priam (Conolly up), beat General Grosvenor and Sarpedon, ridden by John Day. In 1834 Lord Chesterfield won again with Glaucus (Bill Scott up), beating Gallopade, who had won for Mr. Cosby the year before. Twelve months later the hoof was challenged for by Mr. Batson, but there was no reply. It is much to be regretted that no sporting event is now connected with this historic hoof. Considering how small an interest the contests for the Whip have excited of late years, there is little likelihood of this relic being again run for on Newmarket Heath.
Eclipse is closely connected with the history of the Jockey Club. This race-horse of historic memory lived for twenty-five years, and the years in question just coincided with the period during which the Jockey Club grew into a powerful body. It was also the time of the foundation of the Derby, the Oaks, and the St. Leger. Then it was that the Jockey Club first began to be quoted as a real and powerful authority, and when its rulings were first accepted by racing men. The sentence of “warning off,” originally established by precedent, was legally recognized in 1827, when, in the case of the Duke of Portland v. Hawkins, a man to whom the Jockey Club objected was successfully proceeded against for trespass on the freehold property of the club.
Although the memory of Eclipse is intimately connected with the history of the Jockey Club, it is a rather remarkable thing that his owner never succeeded in obtaining admittance to that exclusive circle. Colonel O’Kelly’s one great grievance, which led him persistently to denounce the Jockey Club, was the stubborn refusal of the members to elect him.
On one occasion, when Colonel O’Kelly was making a contract with a jockey, he stipulated as a special condition that he should never ride for any of the black-legged fraternity. The consenting jockey saying “he was at a loss to know who the Captain meant by the black-legged fraternity,” he instantly replied, with his usual energy: “Oh, ——, my dear, and I’ll soon make you understand who I mean by the black-legged fraternity! There’s the Duke of Grafton, the Duke of Dorset,” etc., naming the principal members of the Jockey Club, “and all the set of thaves that belong to the humbug societies and bugaboo clubs, where they can meet and rob one another without fear of detection.”