A Defence of Spouting Clubs.

DRAMATISTS; APPRENTICES; KNIGHT of the Burning Pestle, The (Play : Beaumont); DRAMA; TAILORS; PERIODICALS

From days of the theatrical production "The Knight of the Burning Pestle," British dramatists did not spare the artistic pretensions of apprentices and shop clerks. Magazines and plays, especially of the eighteenth century, contained many references to their peculiar institutions known as "spouting clubs," usually in a tone of ridicule. There was a house at Cripplegate where, on a certain night in the week, the apprentices of mercers, tailors, grocers, etc., upon depositing the sum of sixpence at the bar, received tickets which served as passports into the frontiers of the Muses' territory, vulgarly called the spouting room.