Village Clubs. 
377 
without gambling, together with newspapers, prove a sufficient 
attraction.. 
Some clubs in parishes with 500 or GOO population begin 
with 30 or 40 members, others with 20 ; but in small villages 
nearly all close during the summer-months, when allotments 
claim the attention of the men, or (where, unfortunately, no allot- 
ments are to be obtained) out-door games and amusements take 
the place of the reading-room, and afford general and wholesome 
recreation. These games are encouraged by the members of the 
reading-rooms, and thus an interest in them is kept up through- 
out the year. 
This county organization to assist Village Clubs, now for the 
first time called into existence in Suffolk, has for many years 
been thought necessary in towns, although in the large towns 
there is much less difficulty in forming clubs of all kinds, and 
keeping them up, than in rural districts. For forty years the 
Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Institutes, with its annual 
conference, has flourished. There are some 202 clubs attached 
to it, and 37,600 members are now represented in that one 
union. 
There is very little doubt that these County Clubs will in- 
crease ; and then most useful discussions or conferences may be 
held at no distant period in the different counties of England. 
We are very apt in this country to wait a long time for changes 
in our laws, and not to take advantage of the means at our dis- 
posal to diminish the evils we see around us. Village Clubs 
alone cannot deal with intemperance, but they can remove the 
temptations to excessive drinking by supplying places of recrea- 
tion where drink is not the special object. Education, carried 
out as it will be in a few years in all our rural parishes, to be a 
real^ blessing to the people, must be properly directed. The 
thirst for knowledge amongst the labouring population is 
daily on the increase ; and it is a duty incumbent on the more 
educated classes to supply the materials necessary to guide that 
knowledge into the most useful channels. 
Good secretaries are essential to work the machinery of a 
central society. Suffolk is fortunate in that respect. Lord John 
Hervey and Mr. Robert Johnson of Boyton, who was the first 
person to call attention to the necessity for a Central Society, act 
as Honorary Secretaries. Either of these gentlemen, or Mr. 
Waters, the Secretary, living at Ipswich, will give information to 
those who are really desirous of extending the area of County 
Clubs. 
Temperance cannot be assured, or education thoroughly pro- 
moted, by such clubs unless the full and entire sympathy of the 
labouring classes be enlisted. They should principally manage 
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