Clubs

A ociations with political, literary, or social aims. The Lace demon i ans formed parties of fifteen, each contributing wine or food. The oldest member stood at the door to a ure the others that nothing spoken within doors would be repeated outside. They balloted for admi ion by throwing into a basin soft balls of bread which had first to be pre ed flat; left round they counted as black-balls. The first social clubs in England were the convivial meetings of Shakespeare, Raleigh, Ben Jonson and other great Elizabeth ans at the famous Mermaid and Devil taverns. Under the Commonwealth and later Stuarts these were supplanted by the coffee-houses. The Rota, a political club, was started 1659 at Miles' coffee-house, and White's 1698 at White's coffee-house, while Burton's was frequented by Add is on, Steele, and the wits of Queen Anne's days. Eating, drinking, and gambling were found an efficacious antidote to plotting and turbulence, although the Roaring Boys avowedly organized the Molochs, Blasphemous, Mums, Hectors, Sorcerers, and Nickers, for drunken orgies and street ruffianism, which called forth a Royal Proclamation in 1712. The Civil Club, literary and commercial. founded 1669, still exists. Other famous clubs were Kit-Cat, literary and political, 1700; Dilettanti, fine arts, 1734; Beef Steak, fashionably bohemian, 1735; Royal Society, scientific, ab. 1743; Boodle's 1762; Literary (Dr. Johnson's) 1764; Royal Naval 1765; Arthur's 1765; Almack's (afterward Brooke's), Whig, 1765. French clubs were e entially political and arose ab. 1782. The most celebrated and powerful were the Club des Jacobins and the Club des Cordeliers; they disappeared with the Directory in 1799. Resuscitated by the revolutionary movements of 1848 they were suppre ed in 1849 and 1850. Paris has many social clubs on the English model. Social and literary clubs are found in every large town of the U. S. The first was the Union Club of N. Y., founded 1836; Century A ociation 1847; Union League 1863; University 1865; Manhattan 1865; Authors' 1882 and Players' 1888, all of New York. Philadelphia has the Philadelphia, Union League and the Rit ten house 1875; Baltimore, the Maryland 1857 and the Baltimore; Washington, the Metropolitan 1884, Army and Navy and the Cosmos 1878; Chicago, the Union 1878, the Union League 1879 and Chicago 1869; Boston has Somerset 1851, the Algonquin 1886, and St. Botolph.