1937-06-17 — Page 8

SHANGHAI MAY

BE ADMITTING. WOMEN TO CLUB

MEMBERSHIP BUT LONDON HAS STARTED A

THOSE who are pessimistic

TH about the future of marriage

a

ought to be somewhat reassured by the announcement that Married Couples' Club is about to be opened in London. Never be- fore. I imagine, in the history of the world could the formation of such a club have been even con- templated.

as

During the nineteenth century the typical club flourished man's sanctuary, from home life. He

ardent believer in was an home life, and was never tired of denouncing the Socialists who treatened to undermine it; but he had frequently had enough of it by the time breakfast was over and began to hanker padded arm-chair and a news- paper in a club window.

after a

Home, with a large family,

CLUB FOR MARRIED

Even the first nineteenth- century women's club the Alex- unisexual andria, was strongly and anti-marital in its principles. The Prince of Wales himself was refused admission on one occasion. and, if the husbands of members called, they had to wait for their wives outside.

The opening of clubs to people of both sexes is, of course, no new thing. There are already clubs in existence which are scarcely distinguishable from res- taurants. The club of the future, I imagine, will become less and less distinguishable from restaurant. Most men nowadays seem to prefer restaurants το clubs.

THE CHINA MAIL, JUNE 17, 1937.

MOTWA

COUPLES

and this somehow makes every- thing seem more cheerful.

а

Probably, however, the old form of club, even if it becomes rarer, will still persist, since birds of a feather cannot help flocking together.

of Nothing short Communist revolution, I am sure, will ever prise elderly Conserva- tives out of their armchairs the only place from which it is possible to watch in real comfort a world that is steadily going to the dogs.

I have myself so far as I can remember, never belonged to a Most clubs seem to be at

club. They are more expensive,

was a noisier place in the nine-THE-

teenth century than it is nowa- days, and wives were probably more exclusively domestic in their interests. Man, however, is a lover of peace, and only a partial- ly domesticated animal. Conse- quently, he invented the club as a haven of refuge a somnolent and sacred precinct into which no woman or child dared enter.

were

Possibly, henpecked husbands were commoner in the Victorian

They age.

certainly the theme of hundreds of music-hall songs; and, if these songs were at all true to life, it is not to be wondered at that the male Vic- torians formed themselves into clubs where they could

WORLD GOES BY By "ULYSSES"

without

RESS photographers, who are This Rustic responsible for those pictures Existence of lovely ladies bathing at Repulse

I think I have often moaned in Bay, will be interested to learn that

this column of the impossibility of I have now a special troupe of bath-

living a monastic life far from the ing girls who, for a fee, will be will-

madding crowd. I apologise. It is ing to perform all those antics

not impossible. I will go so far as which bathing girls have never yet to say it is possible right on our This para- been known to do

being door-step, so to speak.

dise is Cheung Chau, where rustics egged on by a cameraman.

rusticate, hermits hermit and idlers For instance: On the command, idle. It must be so, to judge from "One!" my girls will cluster prettily the news letters that feel for

is office from the island after weeks of travelling by runner, pigeon post handy. They will be absorbed

etc. Cause for a binge on Cheung the art of mending a fishing net, an Chau is provided, apparently, by accomplishment which they do not the passing near the island of want to learn, could not learn, and tug towing two barges. This rouses from their which would be entirely useless to the whole population

slumbers. Led by the oldest inha- them if they did learn it.

bitant they-that is five ancients, two children and a dog-rush down to the 'beach and go delirious with excitement at this sign of life in the outside world,

the time being that they were the superior sex, since there was no one of the opposite sex present to contradict them.

Even a husband of so resilient a temperament as Mr. Micawber, with his wife constantly protest- ing her devotion and his far from silent progeny, must sometimes have dreamed longingly of snooz- ing in an armchair, temporarily wifeless and childless, among the bishops in the Athenaeum.

"

To-day, however, home life is much less overwhelming than it used to be. The sexes are more equal. Man is no

longer down- trodden, and woman is no longer voteless. The modern man's com- plaint is, not that he has to see so much of his family, but that he' is able to see so little of it. I know a man who is constantly de- ploring the fact that owing to golf he has scarcely any time to spend with his wife and children during week-ends. That, I think, is evidence of the increase of con- nubial and family feeling in mo- dern times.`

And still stronger evidence, it seems to me, is to be found in the institution .of the Married Couples' Club. The nineteenth century gave birth to a Bachelors' Club. It is only in the freer atmosphere of the twentieth cen- tury that the Married Couples' Club has become possible.

round any old fisherman

who

in

they

On the command, "Two!” will play leap-frog. (This always makes a jolly picture).

►

reach this

a

On the command "Three !" the Recently, it seems the island has girl Maisie (a red-head) will climb been put on the map by reason of wave. Houses a very mild crime Repulse up the hill behind

Bay Hotel, and, with one hand shading Chueng Chau is thus experiencing have been entered by burglars and

her eyes from a non-existent sun, one of the benefits of civilisation. will scan the horizon, though what|So far as I know, however, Scot- she is looking for neither she nor land Yard are not perturbed, and the Hong Kong Police are altoge- anyone else will ever know.

ther nonchalant. Our crime re- On the command "Four!" she will porter positively hopped about the and raise one arm above her head, al-office when told of the affair lowing a scarf to wave in the breeze.

talks of spending his holiday on the (The other hand should be grasping down the miscreants. Truly, Cheung island in an endeavour to track the collar of a giant mastiff, but I Chau seems every inch as exciting do not possess a mastiff).

7

On the command "Five!" the girl Rosie (a brunette) will run to the water's edge and daintily test the water with her toe. (A very popu- lar picture, this!).

as Shameen, where the only sounds that break the silence are cries of "Boy" and the gurgling sound liquids being poured out of a bottle.

of

Truly an exhausting...and nérve- wracking life.

"

it

Finally, on the command "Six!” my silly muts of girls, blondes, My: Motto for To-day: "Its kind brunettes and red-heads, are guar- to swindle people a little bit anteed to sit down upon the sands gets em ready for the big twisters and go through the actions of sun-who may come their way later on" bathing.

-Socrates (I think),

their liveliest at lunch-time, and

I cannot easily accommodate my- self to liveliness at

The thought of the

lunch-time. afternoon's

work to come makes it impossible to concentrate on food and con- versation, or, what is perhaps still more desirable,

to concen- trate on food alone. This is what the typical clubman of the old days was apparently able to do. A member of a club in pre-war days declared that in one London club he had counted 11 out of 14 members "reading newspapers lunch instead of talk- ing to their neighbours." "At ordinary club," he wrote, "there is a fatal proneness to eat under the cover of a newspaper or a novel."

at

∙an

There are

at

clubs, I know, which the food is so good that a man with a nice taste in gor- mandising might well wish not to be distracted by conversation and pretend to read a newspaper in order to protect himself from it. But one o'clock in the day is too early for gormandising, except for the idle rich.

I think it is unreasonable in- deed, to expect a man to become "clubbable" before sunset, when every day becomes for a few hours a holiday. Breakfast and lunch are meals that should

brace man for the day's work: only at the dinner-table, Adam's curse being .temporarily suspended, should he allow himself to relax.

a

Not that I feel particularly "clubbable" at dinner-time not, at least, when the dinner is or- ganised by a dining-club. Most dining-clubs, so far as my experi ence goes, are indifferent to good food but have an enormous ap- petite for bad speeches. And, to my mind, no collection of human beings in which speeches are de- livered at the dinner-table ought to be allowed to call itself a club. A club at which speech-making is permitted becomes merely a public meeting in a restaurant.

The truth is, I suppose, that I have not the temperament either of the clubman or of the dining- club man. As a club-man I am

enjoying the company of disqualified by my incapacity for my fellow-mortals in the middle of the day; as a dining-clubman I am disqualified by my incapacity for enjoying their speeches in the evening.

Yet I like the idea of clubs. I like to see men smoking cigars in

talk, as if they were members of armchairs and looking, as they

the Three-hours-for-lunch Club. Theirs is a Lotus-land in which I shall never dwell, but which I shall always regard with envy......

May the Married Couples Club continue the fine tradition! And may it be followed by the Parents" and Children's Club, where the modern parent may have an oc- casional chance of meeting the junior members of the family!