WORKING MEN’S CLUB FOR SYDENHAM.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2229, 20 April 1881, Page 3

WORKING MEN’S CLUB FOR SYDENHAM.

• TO THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS. Sir, —In your issue of the 13th instant I saw a short account of a meeting held in Sydenham to consider the wisdom and advisability of opening a working men’s club in the borough. I should be sorry to speak or write that which would be in any degree detrimental to the interests or welfare of the working classes, but from what I have known and heard of the outcome and results of such clubs I feel morally certain that the introduction of a working men’s clnb in Sydenham would bo an unmitigated evil. When I first heard working men’s clubs spoken of they opened up to me long vistas of mental culture, superior ideas, and the greater development of intellectual power for the working classes, and my heart glowed with the thought that there were men benevolent and philanthropic enough to organise and carry on such places for the generous and unselfish purpose of benefiting their fellow man. Imagine my feelings, if you can, when I found these so-called intellectual retreats for the working portion of the community merely traps for the young, the careless, the unwary, and the haunts of the confirmed drunkard and gambler. I ask what father and mother would wish their son to be an habitue, or even casual visitor, in such dens of deception and vice ? or why should the intelligent, sober, and hardworking population of Sydenham sanction such deception by allowing a WorkingMen’s Club to be instituted, so that it may cloak the cloven foot of a gin palace P One worthy gentleman at the meeting re ferred to said, “ It was an insalt to the work-ing-man to insinuate that he did not know when he had as much drink as was good for him.” If the subject were not too sad to make a jest of, one could laugh at the shallow silliness of the remark. A very good test of the working-man’s ability to take care of him. self under such circumstances is to be had by reading the police records in the daily papers everywhere, and noting the nnmber of fines struck by “ his Worship ” for drunkenness alone. Total abstinence is the only sure method by which a working-man, or any other, can secure perfect immunity from the evils attendant upon the use of strong drink; and whether old or young, married or single, “ his ain fireside ” is the safest and, in every sense of the term, the most profitable and pleasant evening retreat for the working-man. Hoping the men of Sydenham will strenuously and effectually oppose the establishment of the proposed club, I am, &c., H.B. Sydenham,