ground where perhaps woman is the greater sinner. It must be
remembered, however, that against this must be balanced the neglect
produced by club-life, or by the life of society-membership, in a man. A
brilliant young married belle in London once told me that she was glad her
husband was so fond of his club, for it amused him every night while she
went to balls. "Married men do not go much into society here," she said,
"unless they are regular flirts,--which I do not think my husband would
ever be, for he is very fond of me,--so he goes every night to his club,
and gets home about the same time that I do. It is a very nice
arrangement." It is perhaps needless to add that they are long since
divorced.

It is common to denounce club-life in our large cities as destructive of
the home. The modern club is simply a more refined substitute for the
old-fashioned tavern, and is on the whole an advance in morals as well as
manners. In our large cities a man in a certain social coterie belongs to a
club, if he can afford it, as a means of contact with his fellows, and to
have various conveniences which he cannot so economically obtain at home. A
few haunt clubs constantly; the many use them occasionally. More absorbing
than these, perhaps, are the secret societies which have so revived among
us since the war, and which consume time so fearfully. There was a case
mentioned in the newspapers lately of a man who belonged to some twenty of
these associations; and when he died, and each wished to conduct his
funeral, great was the strife! In the small city where I write there are
seventeen secret societies down in the directory, and I suppose as many
more not so conspicuous. I meet men who assure me that they habitually
attend a society meeting every evening of the week except Sunday, when
they go to church meeting. These are rarely men of leisure; they are
usually mechanics or business men of some kind, who are hard at work all
day, and never see their families except at meal-times. Their case is far
worse, so far as absence from home is concerned, than that of the
"club-men" of large cities; for these are often men of leisure, who, if
married, at least make home one of their lounging-places, which such
secret-society men do not.

I honestly believe that this melancholy desertion of the home is largely
due to the traditional separation between the alleged spheres of the sexes.
The theory still prevails largely, that home is the pecu