countries, is, as a rule, perfectly ignorant and perfectly incurious
as to those of his fellow-countrymen; nor is it based upon the belief
that the working man is imperfect in mind or body; but on an assurance
that the working man will never lift himself to the level of the
higher form of recreation, simply because the ordinary man knows
himself and his own practice. He desires to be amused, and according
to his manner of life he finds amusement in tobacco, reading, cards,
music, or the theatre.

Consider the well-to-do man in pursuit of recreation. He has a club;
he goes to his club every day; perhaps he gets whist there; very
likely he belongs to one of the modern sepulchral places where the
members do not know each other and every man glares at his neighbour.
There is a billiard-table in all clubs as well as a card-room. Apart
from cards and billiards the clubs recognise no form of recreation
whatever. There are not in any club that I know, except the Savage,
musical instruments: if you were to propose to have a piano, and to
sing at it, I suppose the universal astonishment would be too great
for words. At the Arts, I believe, some of the members sometimes hang
up pictures of their own for exhibition and criticism, but at no other
club is there any recognition of Art. There are good libraries at two
or three clubs, but many have none. In fact, the clubs which belong to
gentlemen are organized as if there was no other occupation possible
for civilized people in polite society, except dining, smoking,
reading papers, or playing whist and billiards. The working men who
have recently established clubs of their own in imitation of the
West-End clubs are said to be finding them so dull that, where they
cannot turn them into political organizations, they have tolerated the
introduction of gambling. When clubs were first established gambling
was everywhere the favourite recreation, so that the working men are