Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-18

manner Of notoriety. Your over-shrevd
and under-principled American female
poises and poses, higgles aud wriggles along
gamut of isms' aud lists from female
suffrage past a score of reforms to Christian
science, theosophy and spiritualism into the
capacious bosom of the Over-Soul itself,
meantime pausing anywhere just so long
as she may continue disturbing elementj
ever thrilled and ecstatic over any manner
of notoriety conducting to what she hysterio.
ally imagines has become career
Eager for Notoriety.
"Our barmaids are Just that sort of male
females; proud of tap-room publicity; eager
for tawrdy notoriety; consumed with am
bition for public career. But we are the
most fortunate nation. With US, rigid and
healthful social limitations force these
characters into their proper places at once.
Your female birds of prey defle and fatten
upon your tenderest and most sacred social
and domestic institutions. Ours impinge
only upon our lowest national weaknesses.
Many will consider this British COMPARE
sou and estimate OF our suffering sisterhood
as a verv severe one. Some will be ungal-
liant enough to regard it as an unjust classi-
fcaton of British barmaids themselves. As
L
women. Few ever know a holiday. They
are on their feet from 12 to 16 hours per day.
Whatever their natural tendencies, they
are perforce honest. The British bar sys-
TEN is entirely different from ours. and still
retains much of the favor of the old custom
of the publican and his wife sitting in their
own private room and serving customers
with liquors through a little shelf-bottomed
window; while the publican, his wife. or
some member of his family, is never absent
from the bar during business hours.
In a Measure Protected.
This is much protection to the personality
OF the barmaid. Though you may regard
her as lost to all moral sense, and the Sig
nihcance of words, through the endless repe.
tition of infamous language in her presence
by drunken brutes. brainless cads and
clever roues, in the main she remains meas
ureably Tree from rough treatment. The
modern British bar is practically walled
extension OF the ancient British bar-window.
There is no access to it from the public
room. 1t is as high as your chin. The bar
maid herself, behind the silver beer and ale
pumps, stands two feet above you, a charm
ing study in black, white and carnation-a
black perfect-ftting gown, dainty white
apron, the glory of the rose in, or on, her
cheeks and lips.
She is, in fact, just as most men love to
see woman; suggestive of domesticity in
her raiment, charming in figure and face.
But alter a day and evening of banter and
wiles, through which scores of pockets have
been emptied, brains beclouded and her
master further enriched, the highest and
lowest are remorselessly shut from sight of
her smiling face. 1t is sad, wearied, tired
face now. She is practically a prisoner
there. She lives with the publican's FAM
lily. She goes to a room not fit for dogs
keeping, snatches a few hours sleep and %
again at her post behind the bar to cheer
and wheedle the trembling drunkards OF the
early morning hours. Her meals are
snatched between ferocious rushes of Gus
toners at the bar.
Some of the Requirements.
She must know everybody; be cognizant
of something about everything; have a
soothing word for rum-bedeviled tempers;
plaeidly listen to discussions of herself like
those upon an animal; accept direct and
infamous insult with invitation in her ewes
and honeyed words upon her lips; sympa-
theticaIly receive condolences of the most
sacred or damnable character; in brief, to
the end of her days remain marble Venus
Tor the worship and slavery of Bacchus'
crazed and maddened victims.
For all this she receives from 6 to 20
shillings per week and "keep." Some
masters provide gowns and aprons. The
inconceivable degradation of her calling can
only be limited at in the statement of fact
that there is but one place in Great Britain
at the refreshment bars of leading rail-
wav stations-Yhere refusal to serve one
who insults her would not lead to her inn
mediate discharge without "a character"
The lowest grade in her vocation is among
the sailors "Pubs, In the slums of Mary
lebone, Liverpool and East End. Lon6ou;
the highest, in .he gorgeous London " est
End Gales.
Where Barmaids End
What becomes OF them? Many die =. an
early age of lung disease, the result of their
foul environment. Few drift into the un-
namable classes. Ever seeing the worst
side of men, they are. armed. though
roughly, against temptation. Some become
msnageresses of inns, pubs, OF railway
refreshment rooms and Gales witNa beyy Of
Younger barmaids under them, of cheap
museums, and all manner of enterprises at
seaside resorts.
MANY marry reputable men, but drift
back into their old lives. English nobil-
ity's ranks have been recruited from their
number; and recently q wealthy young
American of Baltimore wed one of the most
beautiful and good of their kind in the
three kingdoms-an Irish barmaid at Cork.
No honest man can speakHf them unkindly
as a class. The power behind them is
responsible for the evil they accomplish.
That is incalculable. Because of their
presence countless British women find il
easy to become drunkards. Because Of
their agreeabilty. sympathetic kindliness
and outright Establishments, all grades and
conditions of men are more and more en-
riching the British dram-shop with all that
should preserve and saDctify the British
home. EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.