By, Larraton In these days when British ward rooms are turned into creches, the Whangpoo into a Kensington Gardens Round Pond where spirited warships Aisplay their prowess, Clubs cannot, expect to be exempt from the topsyturviness, So many a club in Shanghai Ss performing duties which justify its oldest member, if he has hot fallen asleep, In making his usual stately approach to the Complaint Book and recording an indictment of the Secretary, the Committee or any other authority on whom it is his, duty to Keep a. vigilant and jaundiced eye. The adaptability of that normally rigid institution the British club where membership and use are exclusively confined to men is not always understood, Perhaps it, may be helpful to examine it, Why, for example, can a Club do better than a hotel in an emergency? Everyone knows that the Club has peculiar faculty for doing itself well. The hotel is anxious to please its guests and the alm has the strong inducement of commercial gain, whereas the Club does not have to worry about any sordid considera tons of that kind. So ong as it! balances ils budget and its President can effectively dispose of the amateur financier who rises to critize the accounts at the annual meeting it has a quiet ust been indulging in this devastate Ing metamorphosis for the purpose of Jevacuating women and children. }Feminine needs have been magically met by some conjuring feat. Infant voices have shrilly echoed against }the mahogany. Naval and military' commands have mingled with the [buzz of womanly chatter. Concession has been made to normality by permitting members to enter their own Jdomain but they have been made to Junderstand that the privilege is theirs. Hospitality: has smoothed over this inconvenience, In the long run it Ihas conquered and the Club seemed to be zestfully giving a deportment ings. of gracious genality to the proceed-
Not otherwise was it some eighteen years ago when a certain austere upcountry club in India allowed its Grecian portals to be invaded by the military for the purpose of establish-Jing martial law headquarters in an emergency. The martial law com-Jmander was a Territorial Colonel who in private life, had been—as he ater became again—a _company promoter. Ho had direct ways as he sat at his desk in the sacred dining! room, summarily disposed of prison-Jers brought up for correction—minor sentences—interviewed applicants for protection, evacuation or employment. On the bar chit of the Club Me scribbled a few words and handed it to a unit commander who at once sent a car forty miles to draw from the Arsenal in a few hours a machine Perhaps the truth is that when the Hotelier, driven to desperation by, the inexhaustibility of his clients yearnings after perfection can apply the crushing retort that the querulous. one may vacate his suite at once, the Club cannot even threaten such a Jgun on which he had been vainly corresponding with Simla for a whole eighteen months. The gun was defective and happily for the] harassed ear commander it was] never used, but that is another story. retaliation. No Club yet has made grousing an. offence entitling the Committee to enforce the arti which provides for the withdrawal] of membership. So the Club Sei ary, whose qualities of tact and, perhaps, gift for diplomatic persifage raise him above his fellows, knows that he has to fight an tinequat battle, He, therefore, takes the wife's preseat tion of feeding the beast and feeding, him unanswerably well—and "feeding" the whole philosophy of masculine Joneliness is intended. Moreover the Club is so well protected against intrusion and interruption of routine that its machinery is Kept in a condition of almost devastating efficiency. The rules cannot be questioned. There they fare and if anyone thinks that he can. cheerfully evade them he is taught] fan early stage that he ts frivolously daneing on the edge of a volcano. He is committing an even graver solecism than, that of whistling in Emergencies occur from time to lime in this vale of tears. When they are big and make the posters in Fleet Street screamingly divert attention from the latest cricket scores oF
Mim star's, matrimonial adventures, it fs conceivable that the Club may: bbe affected. Resistance to such recognition of the world onside the monastery is delayed as long as possible. But when circumstances overcome diffidence and the Club} feels it has to make a contribution to the general effort, the gates of wont and custom fall with a mighty thud. On the principle that whatever oes it docs thoroughly the Club] ives Its machinery a twist here and a twist there tind the transformation is complete. In London the process Is not so diMeult for, once a year, most clubs know what it is to find strange faces in favourite corners, although the adventure does not involve a' crossing of the sex Me, In Jess congested Clublands the chief sufferer from the fatal decision are the servants—In the psychological sense, They form the last barrier of disapproving dismay at the breakdown, Discipline does not affect their habitual movements of obedience, but by signs of which they alone know, the secret they manage to convey the opinion that the Club authorities have suddenly fallen into infantile error, They console themselves with. the thought that, from the other side of the bar, they have always suspect ed a Tatent madness and they hope that the spasm will soon pass. So if they do not "jump to it" as the sergeant-major would say, they at least give a dignified—but pained—countenance to the proceedings. Here in Shanghai a certain Club has The chief glory of that Club adventure was the resourcefulness of the Martial Law Commander's terary titts, They were allied to an imination which avoided harshness in cing the punishment fit the crime An erring poet was set to write a1 urdu poem in praise of the Club's facade. A recalcitrant baker had to unload flour supplies for the troops. An orator who had indulged too wel the inflammatory eloquence of his Kind was invited—with due pressure in the background—to declaim on the virtues of the Government.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.