American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-11-16
John BULBS Moral Pr0clivftfes.

The fine, healthy picture which Is pre-
sented i'm the comparison between the
Pharisee and the publican is one that al
ways suggests itself when that cOmpla-
cent entity, John Bull, rolls his eyes to
the London clouds and unctuously thanks
Heaven that he is not as is Brother Jona-
than he has no s'rings," no Tweeds, no
Reddy the BlacksmitRs, and-O Lord!-
he has no baby shows but he has bar
maid show, and is rejOiced through all the
tibers of his snobbery and not scandalized
i'm his morals therewithal. Now, there
fore, let us ask, what is barmaid show,
and what are barmaids? 1t would per-
haps be more convenient to look at the
barmaids first. The barmaid is the agent
of the British publican in dispensing beer
to Britons. She flor the sex is fenale) is
a bediZened creature, a frivolous creature,
to stand behind the bars of English liquor
stores and pump beer for the multitude,
receiving in exchange the pennies for the
landlord and all the maudlin stuff which
men are capable OF uttering in a wOman's
ears for her own share. How shocking
this must be at times can be calculated by
the ratio in which drinking induces i'm
moralities to bubble filthy from lewd
lips. This is her lot year in and year out;
and what wonder if she is generally weak
in the end and something to be hidden
away from the eye of day? 1t is, in fact,
huge school of gradual debauchery for
women. from whose depths but a favored
few, a very few, can escape. Amid the
blaze of the tawdry gin palace she drinks
sists the process by draughts from the
brandy keg, at first to put a flash in her
in her eyes, at last as a necessity of her
feverish existence. The barmaid is gen.
orally a physical attraction, chosen for
her points by the landlord as one would
81, ,sc
appearance and cultivate slang as another
portion of her stock in trade. The re-
fined taste which in England demands
this sad exhibition of wOmanhOOd has.
however, of late gone a step further, and
got together an exhibition of this very
class. Fifty flashy girls were set be-
hind fifty bars in place on the suburbs
of London, and the British Public were
invited to come and guZZle beer. and in
guZZling to note their admiration of the
barmaid to their fancy by dropping a bal
lot in her favor. A prize of a gold watch
was to be the guerdon of her who took
the most money and received the largest
number of votes. And the British public
came in its thousands to swill. to talk
slang. to guZZle and to vote that fifty girls
might be booked as surely for perditiOn
as their nonsense could inspire. But,
then to look beyond and Observe.the thou
sands of barmaids in London longing for
and enjoying the fame of Miss Somebody,
who could pump so much more beer, look
so much prettier, or so much faster, and
talk SO much slang. 1t is safe to say that
nothing more demOraliZing than this sys-
tenn exists in :ny country whether tor the
luckless girls themselves or for the silly
youths or siilier men whom these beau-
ties of the beer barrel SO often lure into
dishonesty and crime by only listening to
and smiling at their inanity and limited or
Srpr4n <Rf1 t. t.
process which has its revenge on both
sides. for the bediZened barmaid is held in
the tolls she has drawn around her ad-
mirers.
This system can never flourish in Amer
lea while manhood respects itself. Our
faults we are not unwilling to avow but
this steady and universal degradation of
women can never find place here. 1t is
well known that the beings who make
night hideOus in the concert saloons are
lost before they reach them, and that these
hells are only existent through the laXity
of the police or the law, both of which we
hope to see remedied-the latter by the
next Legislature, i'm booming them irrev-
Ocably. But that a wide spread system
for the decentralization of women such as
the English bar raid evil can appear
among us we are happy not to believe.
Keep your eve at home, John, for the
presently. Y. Herald.
EDUCATION. Squire: "Hobson, they
tell me you've taken your boy away from
the national school. What's that for?"
-Villager: '''Cause the master amt fit
to teach 'un !'-Squire: g Oh, I've heard
he's IA very good MASTER Villager ::
Well, all 1 know is, he wanted to teach
my boy TO spell 'taters' with 'PT"
WASHINGTON CITY is the source from
which a good many strange stories come,
and we are therefore not surprised to