PRELUDE E needed not the burly old doctor to tell us that man is a clubable animal. For the matter of that, taking into the account contemporary experience and example-albeit contradicting many ancient theories and wifely warnings-so is woman. In the older time the club seemed a rival of the home. These modern days it is a home. Club-land and club-life might be described as that narrow stretch of territory lying betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea, too high for the sea to wash and only within the devil's reach when his imps become uncommonly enterprising and lively; a safe region for those that walk straight and look wary. Club laws are less importunate in the word, but more exacting in the act, than home laws; something different, yet equally in restraint. He who has passed unscathed through the home is very well educated and disciplined for the club. In both the member must be a gentleman. If he forgets himself in what is called the bosom of his family, there is none but the stricken wife to chide, loving while she chides. In the chartered organization he forgets himself at his peril. The history of every club must of necessity be but a record of its official doings and public functions. Its individual life and adventures remain ever a sealed book. Having little, if anything, to conceal, it is nevertheless a secret society. To the world outside, this air of premeditated mystery has elevated the commonplaces of every-day existence into a kind of romance. "What did the general say to the judge?" the query runs; "and what happened then?" The world will never know. The newspapers will never find out. There is one spot where the reporter may not enter at will. If he seeks "a story," he will have to invent it. In one of the London clubs a statesman once came to his end under circumstances most tragical. His body was spirited to his lodging. Nor did all the devices of Scotland Yard and the metropolitan press suffice to get at the truthknown to this day scarcely to a half-dozen living men, who may be relied on to make no sign. The Manhattan Club has not been without its adventures, though none of them so deep and dark as to fear exposure and shun publicity. Like the migrations of the good Vicar of Wakefield and his wife, "they lay chiefly betwixt the blue bed and the brown." There were those of us who used in later life to accuse Uncle Dave Gilbert, the most unoffending and methodical of men, of nursing some awful crime-"some secret mystery the spirit haunting"-but dear old Douglas Taylor would come to the rescue with: "The only explanation Dave Gilbert wants to make is that I was with him, and so were Billy Brown and Charlie Dayton and Ashbel Fitch and-" whereat the company, which had often heard the quiz, evaporated to "the rooms thereunto adjoining.” The Manhattan was from the first a simple homelike club. We played most games for small stakes. A little group actually played draw-poker, forbidden in most clubs, without the usual consequences of fuss or scandal. The standard play now is, and for years has been, dominoes chiefly for drinks, "wasting the midday oil," as was once observed by Sylvester O'Sullivan, in that great voice of his, crossing the living-room into the "library,"—as he called the bar,-"and impoverishing themselves and their families instead of improving their minds, as I am about to improve mine." In perusing the pages which follow the reader must content himself with a crude narrative of the Club's visible and official life. It will be found valuable only as a registerinteresting solely in a suggestive way. No claims of authorship are, or could be, advanced in its favor. It has not been composed, but compiled and edited, albeit with fidelity and painstaking. It records a half-century of honorable and not undistinguished service. It reminds the present, and will advise the future, of the past. If it undertook to do more, it would exceed the requirement, passing quite beyond the province of such a digest. The Manhattan Club ranks second to no club in America. To the veteran member who, as a labor of love and duty, has framed these chapters and put these pages together, it doubtless appears, through the magnifying haze of years, greater-certainly dearer-than any. But with the Union Club and the Union League-its contemporaries—and the Century, its senior-it links the life of primitive old New York with that of the wondrous great metropolis; marks impressively the progressive revolutions of modern times; and tells us that, in spite of tide and chance, of time and change, we are Americans, one and all, whether we call ourselves Republicans or Democrats, the party label but a trade-mark stamp, "the man a man for a' that.” At the request of the committee having the celebration of the semi-centenary of the Club in charge, I have added a concluding chapter of personal reminiscence, whose unintentioned egotism may be forgiven if its subject-matter be found worth while. The period of the Tilden domination in the Empire State, beginning with the election of the Sage of Gramercy Park to the governorship in 1875, and not ending until his death in 1886, marked the rise of the Democratic Party from the deeps of political adversity to the firm, high ground of its former prestige and influence-a Democrat in the White House at Washington, and in the executive mansion at Albany, all the result of the wise leadership of Samuel Jones Tilden, one of the founders and always a loyal member of the Manhattan Club. It is hoped the space given to this will not appear disproportioned. It forms an important part of the Club's history, and recalls an almost forgotten chapter of national history. I have taken for an Introductory Chapter a sketch written by Mr. Edward G. Riggs, a member of the Club, and printed in the New York "Sun" some twenty-three years ago, which is so graphic as a contemporary picture and so vivid as a personal reminiscence as fitly to precede the more detailed narration. I have had from members of the Manhattan both assistance and sympathy in collecting the data needful to an adequate record of the Club's activities; but from Mr. Alexander Konta a direct personal interest and an actual division of labor which have been invaluable. In every way and at each turning his literary training, artistic perception and critical judgment, his constant support and loyal zeal, have made that easy which otherwise would have been hard indeed. This prelude would be neither sufficient nor just without my most grateful acknowledgment to Mr. Konta. Hery Wazznan We, the undersigned, mutually agree to become Members of the "MANHATTAN CLUB," in conformity to the Constitution heretofore adopted, and to pay to WILSON G. HUNT, Treasurer, or his order, on demand, the sum of Two Hundred Dollars each, for the Initiation fee and one year's dues in advance from 1st day of October, 1865. New York, September 28th, 1865. NAMES. RESIDENCES. 256 15 thamery Pont 124 test 23 that |