Club-houses.—During the last forty or fifty years new habits amongst the upper classes have led to the establishment of a variety of Club-houses—places of resort unknown to our ancestors. There are at present, including many fifth-rate clubs, about 84 clubs in London. A London club-house is either the property of a private person, who engages to furnish subscribers with certain accommodation, on paying a fixed sum as entrance-money, and a specified annual subscription; or else it belongs to a society of gentlemen who associate for the purpose. Of the first class, the most noted are Brookes’s and White’s, both situated in St. James’s Street, The second class of clubs is most numerous: the principal among them being the Carlton, Junior Carlton, Reform, AthenÆum, Oriental, Conservative, Travellers’, United University, Oxford and Cambridge, Army and Navy, Guards’, United Service, Junior United Service, Union, Arthur’s, and Windham clubs. The houses belonging to these clubs respectively are among the finest at the West-end of London, and may easily be distinguished in and about Pall Mall, St. James’s Street, and Waterloo Place. No member sleeps at his club; the accommodation extends to furnishing all kinds of refreshments, the use of a library, and an ample supply of newspapers and periodicals in the reading-room. The real object of these institutions is to furnish a place of resort for a select number of gentlemen, on what are really moderate terms. The AthenÆum Club, (near the York Column,) which consists chiefly of scientific and literary men, is one of the most important. It has 1,200 members, each of whom pays thirty guineas entrance-money, and seven guineas yearly subscription. As in all other clubs, members are admitted only by ballot. The expense of the house in building was £35,000, and £5,000 for furnishing; the plate, linen, and glass cost £2,500; library, £5,000; and the stock of wine in cellar is usually worth about £4,000. The other principal clubs vary from nine to thirty guineas entrance-fee, from six to eleven guineas annual subscription, and from 600 to 1,500 members. The Albany.—The Albany consists of a series of chambers, or suites of apartments, intended for ‘West-end bachelors.’ No person carrying on a trade or commercial occupation is allowed to live within its limits. There are two entrances, one in Piccadilly and one in Burlington Gardens. The chambers are placed in eleven groups, denoted by letters of the alphabet, A to L. There are about 60 suites of apartments, many of which are occupied by peers, members of parliament, honourables and right honourables, and naval and military officers. Canning, Byron, and Macaulay, are named amongst those who have lived in this singular place. Hotels and Inns.—It has been conjectured (though probably in excess of the truth) that at all times there are 150,000 strangers residing for a few days only in the metropolis; and to accommodate this numerous transient population, there is a vast number of lodging and boarding-houses, hotels, and other places of accommodation. There are upwards of 500 better-class hotels, inns, and taverns. There are about 120 private hotels not licensed, and therefore do not keep exciseable liquors for sale. There are about 5,200 public-houses licensed to sell wines, spirits, and malt liquors. There are more than 1,964 beer-shops, where malt liquors only are sold. The fashionable hotels are situated west of Charing Cross—as, for instance, Claridge’s, Brook Street, Grosvenor Square; Fenton’s, St. James’s Street; Limmer’s, George Street, Hanover Square; the Clarendon, in New Bond Street; the Burlington, in Old Burlington Street; Grillon’s, in Albemarle Street; Long’s, in Bond Street; the Palace, Pimlico; Wright’s, Dover Street; Morley’s, Trafalgar Square; Hatchett’s, Dover Street; Maurigy’s, Regent Street; The almost universal defect of the older class of hotels in London is, that they are too often private dwellings extemporized for purposes of public accommodation—not buildings erected with the distinct object for which they are used. Hence the London hotels, generally, are confined and awkward in their arrangements—a huddle of apartments on different levels, narrow passages, and the offensive odour of cookery being common. Rarely is there anything to parallel the larger hotels of New York, or the Hotel du Louvre at Paris. The nearest approach to these foreign establishments is found in certain hotels adjoining the railway termini, of recent construction. These are the Euston and Victoria Hotels, near Euston terminus; the Great Northern Hotel, adjoining the King’s Cross terminus; the Great Western Hotel, at the Paddington terminus; the Grosvenor Hotel, at the Pimlico terminus; the In and about London, we may mention, are sundry extensive and highly-respectable taverns, which, though principally designed for accommodating large dining and other festive gatherings, lodge gentlemen with every comfort. Among these may be mentioned the London Tavern; the Albion, in Aldersgate Street; several in Fleet Street, near Blackfriars Bridge; the Freemasons’ Tavern, Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields; and so forth. There is, besides, a class of taverns whose chief business is supplying dinners and slight refreshments, also the accommodation of newspapers, and which are resorted to chiefly by commercial men. Each of these has a distinct character. Garraway’s and Lloyd’s, at the Royal Exchange, were once coffee-houses, but now are associated with marine intelligence, stock-trading, and auctions; and in Cornhill, opposite, the North and South American Coffee-house supplies American newspapers; and here also are to be seen the captains of vessels who are preparing to sail to different ports in the western continent and islands. At the Jerusalem and East India Coffee-house, Cowper’s Court, Cornhill, information relating to East India shipping and captains may be obtained. Peele’s Chop-houses, Coffee-shops, and Dining-rooms.—The next class of houses of this nature comprises Chop-houses, but also doing the business of taverns, and resorted to chiefly by business-men—as the Chapter, in Paternoster Row; the Mitre, the Cock, the Cheshire Cheese, and the Rainbow, in Fleet Street. Many such houses are to be met with near the Bank of England, in Cheapside, Bucklersbury, Threadneedle Street, Bishopsgate Street, and the alleys turning out of Cornhill. The Ship and Turtle, in Leadenhall Street, was a famous turtle-house; and others are noted for some specialty. London contains a very numerous class of Coffee-shops, of a much more humble, though perhaps more useful nature, at which coffee, cocoa, tea, bread and butter, toast, chops and steaks, bacon and eggs, and cold meat, may be obtained at very moderate prices; a few pence will purchase a morning or evening meal at such places; and many working-men dine there also. There are about 1,500 houses of this class in London. There is another class of Eating-houses or Dining-rooms, resorted to for dinners by large numbers of persons. Lake’s, His Lordship’s Larder, and one or two others, in Cheapside; Izant’s, and several others in and near Bucklersbury; the Chancery Dining-rooms, in Chancery Lane; the Fish Ordinary at the Three Tuns in Billingsgate, and at Simpson’s in Cheapside; and several dining-rooms in and near the Haymarket and Rupert Street—may be reckoned among the number. A good but simple dinner may be had at these houses for from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. At the St. James’s Hall Restaurant, in Regent Street; Blanchard’s, Regent Street, corner of Burlington Street; the Albion, Russell Street, near Drury Lane Theatre; the London, Fleet Street, nearly opposite the Inner Temple gate; Simpson’s, in the Strand, opposite Exeter Hall; and last, but by no means least, at Speirs and Pond’s Restaurant, at Ludgate Station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway; a very fair dinner may be had, at prices varying Temperance Hotels.—There are several good houses of this character. Among others may be named The Waverley, King Street, Cheapside; Angus’s, Bridge Street, Blackfriars; Anderson’s, Theobald Road; and Ling’s, South Street, Finsbury. |