Morning journal and courier., 1891-01-17
MIR. wAKEMAN's JOURNEYINGs

MIR. wAKEMAN,S JOURNEYINGS.
At London-British Barmaids-Their
Characterfstics-Nine of the
Ale, Beer and Wine Served by Wo-
men-Barmaids in English Litera-
ture-The Old Inns In the Rural
Districts.
LONDON, England, Jan. 2.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
More than nine tenths of all the tremen-
dous quantity of ale, beer, wine and Ii
quor annually consumed by the men, wo-
men and children of Great Britain is
served by women. ... -s...-, ,.
There are nearly two hundred thousand
women thus engaged every dayin the year.
These are, as a class, the prettiest and til
diest women in the three kingdoms.
Whatever their relation to society at large,
they have characters good or bad, man
ners and morals, interesting or otherwise,
and souls saved or unsaved, though the
clergy, church societies and missionaries
never seem to have troubled themselves
about the latter.
During the first half of the past ten
years I had opportunity for frequent
study of these British barmaids. During
the last five years 1 have been able to
closely observe them nearly every day and
evening of my life. At first thought
many may regard them as hardly meriting
serious consideration. 1t seems to me
they are really worth talking about.
English literature is full of the barmaid.
Prose and poetry are redolent of her.
Those rare old fellows who lived, or rather
slept, Sin chambers" and dined and wined
in public houses while making most of the
books which last, all along down through
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
and even as near to US as the first third of
the present century, seem to have drawn
their inspiration largely from the tap
room fount. Indeed, if we will be wholly
honest about it, English literature, the
sweetest and grandest on earth, and the
spigot have ever known close fellowship.
And even if little stress should be laid
upon the matter, we owe to the very pres
ence of the barmaids of those days pres
ervation of the sweetest fancies, the most
sparkling humor, the most charming stu
ations, and a no mean number of the most
chaste and pathetic incidents known to
ballad poetry and fiction. This is not de-
fensive of the barmaid 1t is merely his
toric of her effort on and presence in lite
rature. And I have often thought because
it was SO; because the public house of old
and the barmaid of old became British in
stitutions, unconsciously though univer-
sally grounded in the human heart, they
have survived civilization and decay.
On this line there are two things about
the British people which we in America
utterly fail to comprehend. One is the
Briton's passionate loyalty to anything
sanctioned by prestige and sanctifed by
precedent into the status of an institution
"a British institution. In general all the
more honor to him for that; for in stead
fastness and loyalty to nations own, are
preserved all good things, if few bad
ones happen to remain. Another is, the
average Briton, high or low, is a being
who will retain and sustain all "rights, !"
good or bad, which literature, society, pre-
cedent and government have marked out
for him, with a pertinacity and bravery
which puts to beggarly shame the indiffer-
ence of most American people to all man
ueE VI governmental, llolOpOllSlIC dHIi
other encroachment.
This may seem going long way for
| trivial sequence. But it is undeniably
| true that because the barmaid was long
| ago elevated into a British institution
| through English literature; because the
| older any sentiment or thing, barring the
| barmaid herself. is in Britain, the more
| endearingly it is priced; and because your
| British nobleman or workman will have
| his wine or 'tbitter" from the hand of a
tap-room divinity, whether all the world
like it or not, the prototype of the Ameri.
| can bartender" is here unknown, and
two hundred thousand women serve TWEEN
ty million British people with their brews
and spirits to-day. There are other effects
such as the rapid national increase in the
consumption of liquors; the increasing
power in politics and legislation of the Ii
| quor interests; and, worse than all, the
startling increase of hquor-drinking by al
classes of British women; upon each Of
which vast and sad volumes might be writ
| ten. But the great host of British bar
maids is what the British people like anG
will have; and, being accounted for, il
| class as it individually and collectively ex
| lists.
Rural England is a thing of the past
| and there never was q rural Scotland or 6
rural Ireland where the sweet old inn an6
the sweet young barmaid were havens ano
objects of material and ethical delight
With the end of the coaching days was ar
end of the inn, and with them, long aftel
the old London type had gone, faded ava,
the cherry checked Hebe of the rural hos
telry. To be sure, if you are a genuine
tramp who will seek odd hooks of provin
cial England and Scotland for the yer.
love of adventure, you will now and theI
still find gentle being in cap and apron
whose very presence behind the cupboard
like bar fills your mind with all manner o
chivalrous fancies, until the whole localit,
takes on magical seeming as of sunshin
and flowers. But if you remain Ion,
enough you find that even this rural rarit,
is already tainted by modern unrest. !
farmers daughter, the child of some cas-
tie gamekeeper, of widow lodge keepe
or of some underling of the manor de
mesne, she has already her ambition fxe'
on Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool or Lon
don, or even the bright, busy railway re
freshment-rooms; and year thereafte
you will find her saucy and pert, straigh
and lofty, sage and calm, one of the grea
army of public-house barmaids, at tfoul
teen bob a week and found" Probabl
one-half of the whole are recruited froI
this source. The other half are from th
eternal overplus of city-born girls, wht
without positive immoral tendencies, hay
overborne restraint, and with much vigol
without sex in sentiment and that ssvin
consciousness. springing from the true vi
tue of the glory of sex, have forced the
3 way into this manner of life and emplo,
? ment.
f Some curious facts have developed, q
!, certain interesting lines, in my five year
q study of these people in England, Irelar
and Scotland. AS a rule, in my wande
ings, have sought the humber class
y inns for housing; not only from motiv
of comfort, but as best furnishing variol
and vagarous forms of character stud
c inns on a par, as nearly as can be compare
e with our American hotels of the "secor
a class" Coming again and again to mar
of these, have secured such frienshil
y and condolences as gained for me, in mar
instances, the agreeable position of sol
of the family" with the inns host or hos
9 ess. Not being fitted by inclination
u habit for honors in front of these bar
9 which have always found gains respe
from even those who exist by them,
's reached many q snug corner within ther
There, in the landlords or landlady's cha
's of honor and state. while apparently rea
u ing my mail, or scanning the papers,
y have been favored at all hours of the d,
. and night with pictures of life in Britt,
, ssPubsn-as the barrooms attached to I'M
9 or restaurants are here universally calle
:, | and, during their moments of rest betwe,