Dear Sir,—It is to me a very great disappointment
that I am denied the pleasure of being with you on the interesting occasion of
to-day; when the club starts into vigorous existence, entering upon—I hope
and believe—a long life of usefulness to present and succeeding generations.
I have for some days been labouring with a violent cold, which, at the last hour,
leaves me no hope of being with you. This to me is especially discomfiting upon the
high occasion the council meet to celebrate; for we should have but very little to
boast of by the establishment ot the club, had we only
| DOUGLAS JERROLD AND HIS LETTERS. | 277 |
We therefore recognize a higher purpose in the Whittington Club; namely, a triumphant refutation of a very old, respectable, but no less foolish fallacy—for folly and respectability are somehow sometimes found together—that female society in such an institution is incompatible with female domestic dignity. Hitherto, Englishmen have made their club-houses as Mahomet made his Paradise—a place where women are not admitted on any pretext whatever. Thus considered, the Englishman may be a very good Christian sort of a person at home, and at the same time little better than a Turk at his club.
It is for us, however, to change this. And as we are the first to assert what may be considered a great social principle, so it is most onerous upon us that it should be watched with the most jealous suspicion of whatever might in the most remote degree tend to retard its very fullest success. Again lamenting the cause that denies me the gratification of being with you on so auspicious a day,
