After a short time the Amphitryon closed its doors, and left behind it nothing but the memory of some excellent dinners and a certain number of heavy unpaid bills.
A somewhat similar institution was the Maison Dorée Club, at No. 38 Dover Street. The committee was an influential one, numbering amongst its members the Dukes of St. Albans and Wellington, Lord Breadalbane, Lord Dungarvan, Lord Castletown, Lord Camoys, Lord Lurgan, Prince Henry of Pless, and Lord Suffield. The entrance fee was two guineas, and the annual subscription the same sum. The cuisine was under the management of the Maison Dorée, which was then in the last days of its existence in Paris.
The club-house was almost too elaborately decorated. Gold, indeed, had spread even to the area railings, and the lock of the area door itself was adorned with heavy dull gold! The pantry-maid, it was said, had a solid gold key to open and shut the latter for the convenience of any favoured policeman! On the whole, the building presented a most imposing, if rather gaudy, appearance. The decorations of the dining-room consisted principally of pastoral scenes painted on tapestry panels in the French style, whilst a large glass tea-house overhung the garden, and was supposed to form a highly attractive feature.
The club, however, met with the same fate as the Amphitryon; indeed, it fared a great deal worse, the latter for a time, at least, having been a success, which the Maison Dorée never was. Lingering on in a moribund state, it soon flickered out, its disappearance being followed some time later by that of the parent restaurant in Paris, which, owing to lack of support, ended its career, to the regret of all lovers of high-class gastronomy.
Later on, one or two other restaurants made an attempt to introduce “supper clubs,” where members might remain after 12.30, the closing hour which a ridiculous Act of Parliament fixes for all licensed premises. None of these supper clubs, however, proved successful. Quite naturally, people soon became tired of seeing the same faces; besides, there is nothing that amuses ladies so much as scanning and criticizing the heterogeneous crowds which nightly flock to restaurants after the theatre. Willis’s—for a time much frequented by the smart world—was remodelled and spoilt in order to make room for a club of this sort, with the result that an excellent restaurant lost its popularity, and finally disappeared altogether.
Not very many years ago, before the registration of clubs was made compulsory by law, there were many so-called “clubs” in London which were little but revivals of the old night-houses and gaming-hells, though the latter were always subject to occasional raids. Whether the suppression of markedly Bohemian clubs generally was an entirely wise measure seems somewhat doubtful; the mere hounding of dissipation from one haunt to another effects no good, and in all probability the best plan would have been to tolerate a certain number of such resorts, provided they were orderly and did not constitute a nuisance to the neighbourhood.
The gambling clubs, often run by very shady characters, undoubtedly did considerable harm to numbers of pigeons, who, however, would in most instances have lost their money even had such resorts not existed. The best known of these so-called “clubs,” however, were started solely to pillage some rich young dupes who formed the support of such places and their crowd of most dubious members. Clubs of this kind often provided a very luxurious supper free, it being well worth the while of the proprietor to attract anyone likely to keep the place going. As a rule, the individual in question also laid the odds during the afternoon, and some colossal pieces of roguery were not infrequently perpetrated in connection with turf speculation. As late as the early eighties of the last century, young men about town were exposed to every kind of insidious robbery. The more blatant forms of West End brigandage seem now to have abated; but human nature does not change, and very likely they have merely altered in form.
CHAPTER VIII
THE TRAVELLERS’—ORIENTAL—ST. JAMES’—TURF—MARLBOROUGH —ISTHMIAN—WINDHAM—BACHELORS’—UNION—CARLTON—JUNIOR CARLTON—CONSERVATIVE—DEVONSHIRE—REFORM
Though, as has before been said, the majority of West End clubs have been obliged by force of circumstances to relax the exclusiveness which was formerly one of their most salient features, a few still manage to retain that social prestige which was the pride of quite a number in the past.