The custom of giving washed silver lasted latest at Arthur’s, where it was only abandoned a few years ago. It seems a pity that such a cleanly and hygienic custom should have fallen into disuse.
Another old custom was the house dinner, where members dined together. At White’s and Boodle’s this function used to be a great feature—highly appreciated by some of the older, more stingy, or impecunious members. Immemorial custom prescribed that the first four members who put their names down as diners should have dinner “free of cost,” and a certain gang of old gentlemen used to make a regular practice of being in these club-houses in good time to inscribe their names.
Wine, of course, had to be paid for, but the most economical contented themselves with table-beer. There was great consternation amongst the “fraternity of free feeders” when, during the early seventies of the last century, these house dinners were abolished.
Some few clubs still retain the snuff-box which once figured on the mantelpiece of every club. In most, however, it has disappeared. Snuff-taking has become obsolete since the triumph of the cigarette—perhaps a more pernicious habit.
The question of smoking has frequently caused great agitation in London clubs. In 1866, for instance, White’s, where cigars had not been allowed at all till 1845, was much perturbed concerning tobacco, some of the younger members wishing to be allowed to smoke in the drawing-room, whilst the older ones bitterly opposed such a proposal. A general meeting was held to decide the question, when a number of old gentlemen who had not been seen in the club for years made their appearance, stoutly determined to resist the proposed desecration. “Where do all these old fossils come from?” inquired a member. “From Kensal Green,” was Mr. Alfred Montgomery’s reply. “Their hearses, I understand, are waiting to take them back there.”
The non-smoking party triumphed, and as an indirect result was founded the Marlborough Club, where, for the first time in the history of West End Clubland, smoking, except in the dining-room, was everywhere allowed.
As a matter of fact, the restrictions as to smoking which still prevail in a number of old-fashioned clubs are for the most part out of date and absurd. At the present time people smoke in ladies’ boudoirs, and almost invariably in dining-rooms after dinner. The great restaurants, a large portion of whose clientèle consists of refined ladies, permit smoking everywhere.
Nevertheless, in a number of club morning-rooms, libraries, and sitting-rooms, the resort for the most part of a number of middle-aged men, often of a somewhat derelict-looking type, tobacco is entirely banned.
The whole thing is merely a perpetuation of an out-of-date prejudice. The regulations against smoking which prevail in different clubs clearly demonstrate the small foundation of reason which underlies such restrictions.
The Carlton allows smoking in its library; the Junior Carlton does not. The Conservative Club, on the other hand, has an excellent rule which permits members to smoke in the morning-room after a certain hour in the morning.