THE CITY THAT WAS
tendency ran through all grades of society—except, perhaps, the sporting people who kept the tracks and the fighting game alive. These also met the stranger—and also took him in.
Centres of man hospitality were the clubs, especially the famous Bohemian and the Family. The latter was an off-shot of the Bohemian; and it had been growing fast and vieing with the older organization for the honor of entertaining pleasing and distinguished visitors.
The Bohemian Club, whose real founder is said to have been the late Henry George, was formed in the ’70s by newspaper writers and men working in the arts or interested in them. It had grown to a membership of 750. It still kept for its nucleus painters, writers, musicians and actors, amateur and professional. They were a gay group of men, and hospitality was their avocation. Yet the thing which set this club
[39]
