The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-09-16
A pop BEER GARDEN.

ance work should not overlook the tact
that a large proportion of the men who
go to saloons visit them not SO much
for drinking alcohol as for social amuse-
ment. It is the social aspect of the
saloon which attracts and those who
make the greatest success of the retail
LIQUOR trade are the ones who provide
the best facilities for social chat and
recreation. 1t is on this account that
a group of modern men-savers propose
to reform the domestic system OF the
saloon by removing all chairs and
tables, newspaper files, card rooms,
ETC., and leave the saloon with merely
a bar where men may go, as horses to
a watering trough, to get their drinks
and leave. They argue that saloon SO
carried on will cease to attract the very
large class to whom the glass OF
whisky or the schooner of beer Is not
the end sought but the means to the
end.
In the local Murphy Hall we have
an attempt to provide social pleasure
for men who otherwise might seek it in
saloons What need of success the
scheme has had simply proves the case
for those who would try for the same
object in a more rational way. The
value in this work of an upstairs nan
with presidents and private secretaries
and great deal of talk, is vislbfy nm
lifted. We have, in late issue, quoted
high authority for the view that cor
ner saloon, with all the decent appur-
| tenances of the ordinary rum shop and
without alcohol on it's bill of fare, wouiu
serve the purpose of the practical re-
| formers better than an upstairs demt-
| literary and musical club could pos
sibly do. 1t is not our purpose TO go
over the ground again, but to address
ourselves to another phase of this in
| teresting subject.
| We remember reading an account OF
the way a plan for getting the foot
| loose and unattached man, eager for
the gregarious life and of no social con-
lnections locally, into temperance at
lmosphere, -ras successfully carried out
The town had a university and several
| hundred young men spent their even
ings acquiring the beer and cigarette
habit, They were not so very partial TO
beer, for healthy young Americans OF
New England parentage rarely are;
nor did tobacco fill their SOULS with JOY
half as often as it did their stomachs
with nausea. But the beer and the
cigarettes, the hot lunch, the lights and
the warmth, the singing and the new
acquaintanceships combined to give
them the taste of free and easy good
fellowship they longed for. Had there
been sweet cider and ice cold ginger ale
instead of the amber fluid, they would
have got along just about as we'll. At
least so a philanthropist thought and
he put his ideas into practical effect.
He might have endowed chair in the
University or built a new dormitory or
founded an asylum or paid for SAINT
torium but he figured that he could do
more good with what he called pop
beer garden. This man had been abroad
and he had seen how vast a part lager
beer gardens played in the social life
of Germany. He had seen whole fami-
lies go there and he had noticed two
things-one that the people paid less at
tention to their beer than they did to
the music and the chit-chat. The spirit
of the place was in no sense bacchana-
liam; it was pre-eminently and delight
| fully social. Nobody went home drunk;
everybody went in spirit of rational
| good fellowship. Still beer was beer.
II can't conscientiously offer these
college boys beer" the man said when
| he returned home; besides, beer with
them would be an acquired taste. But
| they will drink pop beer, cider and
lemonade if can get them started
| So he built big pavilion which could
|
closed for warmth in winter and fitted
! it in the most attractive way. AT one
end he had a dais where an orchestra
was to sit; on one side he had an
elaborate bar; further down was a sheer
white disc where he thought he would
throw stereopticon pictures; across the
way was lunch CO.. nter with kitchen
| behind 1t. There were electric lights
all over the ceiling and the floor was
of little checked irregular tiles; the
woodwork was polished and inlaid with
mirrors; at the comfortable chairs by
the round polished. wooden tables, four
hundred people could be seated There
were some rather striking pictures on
the walls and some fine house palms
were scattered about. In the center OF
tIne room was d DTOtlZe lOuHIdii u I'm
ling water into a basin filled with fish.
Ton the opening night the place was
sfcrowded and the swhite-aproned walters
were as busy as bees serving cold
drinks and hot or cold lunches-pint
glasses of ginger ale just out of cold
storage; plates of frankfurters and
isauerkraut, picked fish, pretzels
sweitzerkase and mustard, ham sand
witches and cold-boiled tongue-cheap
for cash BY order of the management
the orchestra was not permitted to play
classical music; 1t played all the col
lege and popular airs and sometimes
the chorus which the students raised
! drowned cut the string musicians. Not
a speech was made and there were nc
hired performers; there was rollick-
ing good time which didn't hurt any
one. Nothing ever before had struck
the rum shops and the lager beer
saloons In that town so hard a blow.
Doesn't 1t seem as If something OF