=COUNTRY CLUBS=

Country clubs are as a rule less exclusive and less expensive than the representative city clubs, but those like the Myopia Hunt, the Tuxedo, the Saddle and Cycle, the Burlingame, and countless others in between, are many of them more expensive to belong to than any clubs in London or New York, and are precisely the same in matters of membership and management.  They are also quite as difficult to be elected to as any of the exclusive clubs in the cities—­more so if anything, because they are open to the family and friends of every member, whereas in a man’s club in a city his membership gives the privilege of the club to no one but himself personally.  The test question always put by the governors at elections is:  “Are the candidate’s friends as well as his family likely to be agreeable to the present members of the Club?” If not, he is not admitted.

Nearly all country clubs have, however, one open door—­unknown to city ones.  People taking houses in the neighborhood are often granted “season privileges”; meaning that on being proposed by a member and upon paying a season subscription, new householders are accepted as transient guests.  In some clubs this season subscription may be indefinitely renewed; in others a man must come up for regular election at the end of three months or six or a year.

Apart from what may be called the few representative and exclusive country clubs, there are hundreds—­more likely thousands—­which have very simple requirements for membership.  The mere form of having one or two members vouch for a candidate’s integrity and good behavior is sufficient.

Golf clubs, hunting clubs, political or sports clubs have special membership qualifications; all good golf players are as a rule welcomed at all golf clubs; all huntsmen at hunting clubs, and yet the Myopia would not think of admitting the best rider ever known if he was not unquestionably a gentleman.  But this is unusual.  As a rule, the great player is welcomed in any club specially devoted to the sport in which he excels.

In many clubs a stranger may be given a three (sometimes it is six) months’ transient membership, available in some instances to foreigners only; in others to strangers living beyond a certain distance.  A name is proposed and seconded by two members and then voted on by the governors, or the house committee.

The best known and most distinguished club of New England has an “Annex” in which there are dining-rooms to which ladies as well as gentlemen who are not members are admitted, and this annex plan has since been followed by others elsewhere.

All men’s clubs have private dining-rooms in which members can give stag dinners, but the representative men’s clubs exclude ladies absolutely from ever crossing their thresholds.

=WOMEN’S CLUBS=

Excepting that the luxurious women’s club has an atmosphere that a man rarely knows how to give to the interior of a house, no matter how architecturally perfect it may be, there is no difference between women’s and men’s clubs.