The record-union., 1893-07-05
DOORS TO PERDIHION.
The Ladies Entrance to the
Saloon.
The Way Many Women Are Enticed
Into Intemperance and
immortality.
DOORS TO PERDI9ION.
From the San Francisco Chronicle.l


The sign Ladies' Entrance" was over
the saloon door which Mrs. J. H. Critics
entered, thence to be taken a few hours
later, stark and bloody, the victim of
drunken brute's fiendish atrocity. 1t is
all over town. From a thousand places
1t stares one out OF countenance, and its
sinister significance is often enhanced by
the combination of barroom below and
lodging-house above.
The ladies entrance" is a back-door
Immigrant. 1t came here from Australia,
where the English custom of men and
women drinking in the taprooms of
taverns had become more than common.
American ideas had never tolerated the
barmaid as an institution, and were still
less kindly disposed toward women
mingling with men in the freedom and
indulgence of the public barroom.
The back room and the ladies' entrance
solved the problem. That it has pro-
NOTED intemperance among women is
apparent, but it has allied to this furtive
and secluded system of drinking a vice
still more demoralizing.
About twenty years ago the sign La
dies Entrance" first made its appearance
~ lhAo CITY IL w do nOL OileH 6LCOuuLGI6u
IN those days, and the women seen enter
ing were generally independent of public
opinion. For them the ladies' entrance
was convenience, not disgrace. 1t
took some time to dOmesticate the institu-
ton, and its extension was slow for some
years. About fifteen years ago it began
TO show signs of popularity, and saloons
of pretentious character began to tax e
it up.
1t became the fashion some ten or a
dozen years ago, and the ladies' entrance,
with the convenient back room and the
suggestive seclusion, IS the recognized
adjunct Of nearly all saloons except beer
cellars and some old-faShioned down
town resorts. Within the last decade it
has multiplied by the hundred, and has
invaded the suburbs and the most ex-
elusive residence districts. From the
PotrerO to the Preside the corner grocery
tiauntS the sign, and every approach to
Golden Gate Park is blazoned with the
device. The fate of Mrs. Critics simply
furnishes a glimpse behind the scenes
and gives a hint of the true import of the
cabalistic sign.
Even the suburban towns have been in
vaded by this foreign graft on American
customs, and every considerable village
is haunted by the notification that women
patronize private bars. That they do so
in the seclusion of back rooms and al
IuOSI luNdIldDly All In6 company OF men
who are neither husbands nor relatives
speaks for itself. 1t tells story of moral
degradation that requires no extra color
ing to depict it as hideous and appalling.
The ladies' entrance is profitable, hence
its popularity and rapid spread. Stimu-
| lated by the presence of women men
spend money freely. The effect of the
free and easy intercourse of common in
| tOXicatlOn in Selusion on women can be
better imagined than described. If it
does no worse, it destroys the home ties
and the domestic spirit Of wives and
sends TO perdition thousands of young
girls annually.
The extent of the traffic in alcoholic
liquors with women as the consumers, or
companions of the consumers, can hardly
be realized. 1t is the most lucrative
branch of the saloon business of this city.
Scores Of saloon-k keepers, proprietors of
the most pretentious places on the fash
ionable streets, will frankly confess that
if il were not for the ladies' entrance and
the back-room business they would have
to quit business.
Not few of them express disgust that
such adjuncts are necessary parts of their
establishments, but they excuse them
selves on the ground that they must do 1t
to compete with others. They admit
that the resulting decentralization among
| women is great and growing evil, but
COHSO10 lHGtHStlNeS Win IQ0 19ueCtlOn
that if they do not cater to it somebody
else will.
The female demand for strong drink
has caused a number of restaurants and
drug stores to furnish facilities for supply,
1t is common thing for the drug store
soda fountain to give forth drink that
tastes a good deal like bourbon and is
fully as intoxicating. A considerable
portion of the trade of a certain class of
restaurants is embraced in supplying
women and their male escorts with alco-
hollc drinks, either straight or mixed
The patrons of such establishments sit
down at a table as if they intended to or
der lunch, but they are there to drink and
not to eat 1t would make an old-stager
stare sometimes to see what stiff horns
fashionable women can swallow straight.
But the drug store and restaurant traf-
tic in liquor to women is harmless COM
pared To the ladies' entrance and the back
room of the common bar. The trade is
conducted with sort of publicity that
prevents the demoralizing consequences
that follow intoXication in male cOlnDan-
ionship behind screens and closed doors.
Besides, when women go to drug stores
and restaurants for their drinks they are
usually without male company. They
drink among themselves and pay their
own score.
1t is the ladies' entrance to the saloon
that yawns in more than LOO places
within the city limits of San Francisco. to
say nothing of the dives and restaurants
with saloon attachments that tells the
story of female intemperance. The police
and hospital records testify to the rapid
increase ofthe drink habit among women.
but even they furnish a scanty and imper-
feet idea Of the extent of the evil. The
drink habit-not the habit Of drinking
wine at meals or for household refresh
ment, but the habit of drinking ardent
spirits to eXcess-ls increasing in quar-
tef where police records reveal little Of its
presence. Only occasional calamitous re-
suits bring the intemperate habits of the
middle and wealthier classes to the atten-
ton of the police in their authoritative
capacity. Multitudes of women of the
leisure class tipple with more or less
regularity and get periodically in par
TALLY or wholly fuddled condition. Some
times this is known to husbands and
relatives and sometimes it is not AS a
rule the relatives are the last to find it
out. In general, woman of refined
associations and good breeding will seek
unworthy and protiigate male associates
in order to crafty her appetite fer liquor
when it has once become strong or to
obtain the conveiences for gratifying it.
\ o stretch of the Imagination is required
to picture the result.
The dives are not doing one-tenth the
harm that the ladies' entrance to the or
dinary saloon is doing" said one of the
foremost physicians in the city-a resi-
dent on California street-to a Chronicle
reporter yesterday. The dives are, of
course, evil places, but their wick edness
is open and to certain degree exappar-