Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1892 — An Old Institution. [ARTICLE]

An Old Institution.

It is to the trade guilds of Borne that clubs owe their origin. So numerous were they that even the slaves of great houses formed societies of their own. The purely social clubs of the Roman Emp re were formed chiefly of Romans employed in the more distant parts of the universe, in older to lessen the feeling of isolation which their exile involved. Notwithstanding that military clubs were prohibited by the state, they were tolerated among the officers of regiments employed in foreign service, as a compensation for the social disadvantages entailed in a long residence abroad. Another form of the social club was the ladies’ club. Although we are accustomed to look upon ladies’ clubs as institutions especially characteristic of pur own times, they are, in fact, far older than English civilization itself. Ladies’ clubs of Rome were very numerous, and met for religious as well as social purposes. The most distinguished of them was known popularly as the “Senate of Matrons.” Its title was derived from an imperial edict. Attached to it was a debating society in which momentous questions of etiquette and dress were discussed with becoming gravity. Sometimes the fair women so far condescended as to interfere in municipal questions, and when a man who was so fortunate as to gain their good will died, the ladies erected a statue of their hero.