Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1883-05-23

Her E1irtatfOn0 Behind the bar and
Her Hard Life Before It.

t1Sk k11ft0t1OU0 B00t00 the kB88 anu
Her Hard Life Before Its
FINE CLOTHES AND DIAMONDS ON 4 SMALL
sALARY-A SINGULAR SOCIAL srUDY-How SHE
TRAPS HER WILLING VICTIMS.
Correspondence San Erancisco Chronicle.
The barkeeper in London is barkeeperess.
She is fraud, sometimes she is lady. but not
often. If she has been, she has usually gotten
bravely over 1t. Not but that she is square
enough for London but she is a bad investment
In the matter Of the matrimonial market, where
there is more of her Offering than is bid for She
usually wears black dress and short, banged
hair writer in the Wichita Times says girl
with her hair banged looks like an unruly cow
with board over her face. Well, fortunately
the COW is behind the fence In the London bar
and she don't butt it down to increase the
danger of the honestly thirsty visitor. who
quaffs his slowly furnished glass in ENJOYMENT
harshly qualified with the pertness of the crea-
ture who serves it. The bar-maid comes from no
body knows where and conceaIs her removal
from active service In the same description of
mystery. She never looks happy and her lot,
like the policemen in the PIRATES of PEN
zance," is not happy one. She will not make
haste, she will get the wrong drink before the
wrong drinker and the wrong change before the
dignity that rests upon her uneasily; free Of
language, which she stabs with ungrammatical
sentences and fortunes with misprOnunciatiOns;
scOrnful Of flattery that does not elevate her to
the first place in the gallery of British beauties,
resentful of ordinary business courtesy, tardy in
service impertinent in reply and insolent in de-
meanor. Well, she has cause She is the sub
ject of conflicting treatments One man plaits
her hair another pulls it-metaphorically,
mean. She IS treated by some shallow pated
nn6h ny,ip v>1nI>
selves regular dogs as queen and paid by her
employer pittance that makes death by slow
starvation assume the charming prospect of
bloated luxury and pampered epicurianism.
BARMAIDs WITH DIAMONDS.
But she is human creature. and l want to
tell You about her in plain fashion. She is an
important element in this curiously constituted
London society Of ours. The maximum salary
for a barmaid is twelve shllings week, and
her average time on duty is thirteen hours a
day. Spiers Pond, who employ over 1900
girls, pay this sum and exact this service, giving
them free one meal day and two black alpaca
dresses year. They may not wear cOOrs but
they may wear diamonds. How can they? Don't
ask me; but the other night in the Criterion l
sat at a table opposite bar where there are
twelve barmaids, and they all had diamonds,
some of them great big sOtaires. They don't
wear sealskin Jackets or usters behind the bar
but lots OF them have them, and to see some OF
them in the stalls in the theater is imposing.
But the Criterion barmaid Is not representative,
nor are the handsome. superci0us young women
you meet in the Grand Hotel or at the principal
railway stations. Nor is she fairly represented
at the Gayety. The Gayety Is a atfloafng-
place for actors and the sort of well-dressed,
lmpecunOus ready-tO-drink young man, who
feels that not to visit the Gayety every day is to
Justify him in crying "Die1n perdi," like Caesar.
h COMMON DIALOGUE.
Sometimes he comes there in an extreme con-
ditiOn Of continued, although normal, i'm
pecunlosity. He leans up against the edge Of
the bar and says, ''good morning dear" The
young woman replies according to her charac-
ter and her estimate of him. "a glass of Bit
ter, he adds laughingly. At the end of half an
hour he has been furnished the glass. At some
time during that interval, having laid down
two pence, Re questions in the softly uninter-
ested query of youth Jldse:
"HOw is baby?'
''Nicey thank you" replies the anywhere
between-sixteen-a and thirty -fve-year- old-intant
And then the young man shells out and calls
it life
1t would be good thing for the bar-maid If
that were all the kind of youth she had to en-
counter. Sometimes her customer has, in adj
dition to this nature of a. desire to see life, a
considerable sum of money.
''Ybur night off. dear!''
mo: Tomorrow
$50 to the theater?''
Eyes if there's to be SUPPER
'Of course there's to be supper"
But must have gloves"
"What siZe?"
She wouldn't be woman II she didn't say, 'Six
and half, eight button. please
She goes to the theater with that young man.
she has supper with that young man. and she
wears gloves too. but not six and half size
Fly young WOman-she has traded them or put
them aside for a future sale Of accumulated
stock of the legitimate tributes, which are an
important factor in her income.
CATCHING FORTUNES.
Now, it would astonsh you if you could know
what sort of men come about these women
The drivelng youth she must endure, but she
aims at better game and catches it in rich men
OF business and social position who grow hope
full over drink or two and court her assidu-
Ously. The record OF her career has been IL
Tuned with captives who bore the quartered
arms OF the loftiest peerage and there are more
bar maids who have been made 'my LADY, than
there have been actresses. This is not strange,
considering the opportunities which the young
men have. Spiers Il Pond have had half dozen
young women who have left their glasses and
napkins for the dignity of high life. and l may
say with the same frankness and truth that the
record of the assertions from their service is more
frequently marked by the absence of better sue
fNNA
casual talk with an employer of many bar
maids which led to this letter, SO in adding fact
to impression, he may be quoted as
saving that of seventy-four girls that
entered his employ one-fifth went to
pieces. But" said he, my business is pecu-
liar" 1t b in four or five places largely
theatrical. AS a rule the girl who seeks to be
bar-maid has aspirations toward the stage. She
falls quickest to the prospect OF a speedy eleva-
ton to the estate of actress and finds no end of
men who are ready to give her the promise of
that mu"h-desired eminence. The stage that she
most frequently attains in such case is the
pave, and the theater of her life is st. Johns
Wood, Pimlico. Leicester Square, Whitechapel
and finally Radcliffe Highway.
SOME HONEST MAIDS AMONG THEM
But there are honest, respectable girls among
them. Of course there are. Bar drinking is
not a social nor legal offense when practiced
by women in London. / believe it is both in
San Francisco, or was, and it is not fostered as
recommendation for public respect in any part
of the state. 1t is neither frOwned at nor en-
couraged in England, and have seen Church