was, his example has been well followed for many years past. In the
poorer and more populous districts of the metropolis, this practice of
making provision for inevitable wants, by small subscriptions paid in
advance, prevails to a large extent. As winter sets in, almost every
provision-dealer, and other traders as well, proffers a compact to the
public, which he calls a club, though it is more of the nature of a
savings-bank, seeing that, at the expiration of the subscribing
period, every member is a creditor of the shop to the amount of his
own investments, and nothing more. Thus, besides the Plum-pudding
Clubs, there are Coal Clubs, by which the poor man who invests 1s. a
week for five or six of the summer months, gets a ton of good coal
laid in for the winter's consumption before the frost sets in and the
coal becomes dear. Then there is the Goose Club, which the wiser
members manage among themselves by contracting with a country dealer,
and thus avoid the tipsy consummation of the public-house, where these
clubs have mostly taken shelter. Again, there is the Twelfth-cake
Club, which comes to a head soon after Christmas, and is more of a
lottery than a club, inasmuch as the large cakes are raffled for, and
the losers, if they get anything, get but a big bun for their pains
and penalties. All these clubs, it will be observed, are plants of
winter-growth, or at least of winter-fruiting, having for their object
the provision of something desirable or indispensable in the winter
season. There is, however, another and a very different species of
club, infinitely more popular than any of the above, the operations of
which are aboundingly visible throughout the warm and pleasant months
of summer, and which may be, and sometimes is, called the Excursion
Club.

The Excursion Club is a provision which the working and labouring
classes of London have got up for themselves, to enable them to enjoy,
at a charge available to their scanty means, the exciting
pleasures--which are as necessary as food or raiment to their health
and comfort--of a change of air and scene. It is managed in a simple
way. The foreman of a workshop, or the father of a family in some
confined court, or perhaps some manageress of a troop of
working-girls, contracts with the owner of a van for the hire of his
vehicle and the services of a driver for a certain day. More
frequently still, the owner of the van is the prime mover in the
business, but then the