The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-31
WOMEN AND THEIR WORK. ABOLISHMENT OF B4R-MAIDS
 IN GLASGOW
And Other Cities of Scotland Opposi-
 ton Encountered by the Reform

ton Encountered by the Reform
 Consistency is too much to ask of one
 person, not to say of bodies of people,
 and therefore no one should be sur
 prised at it's lack, still when public
 opinion, reused to the enormities of
 some crying evil, strives to abate it, it
 seems strange that there is always a
 rise to it's defence. Take the case of Glasgow bar-maids, For the last tWen-
 short-story writer, not to mention the
 clergymen and moralizers, have paint
 ed the tempt tatons, the overwork, long 1 hours and no days off oe the bar-maid
 not the Glasgow bar-maid in particu- | lar but all bar-maids, The universal
 and just opinion has been that the bar
 maid is young woman much to be pit ! jed Good looks are a desideratum de
 manded by her employer; she is also re-
 quired to dress well on small wages; l shemust be on her feet all day and much of the night, serving drinks to all | conditions of men, drunk or sober, we'll | behaved or low-lived She is a helpless 1 target for gross so-caled firtations, du- | bious compliments; often the paoifier of drunken rows. When good looks and youth have gone, so is her occupation. Surely theirs is one of the worst em- ployments. and much public sympathy
 has been expressed for her in the daily press But now the city magistrates of
 Glasgow have passed an ordinance for bidding the employment of women as attendants in drinking bars and Lon
 don papers, and presumably the Scot
 tish press. are inundated with papers
 lamenting the injustice of turning out
 of employment a deserving class of
 young women. No one would dispute
 that there are many well-disposed bar
 maids, but surely every one should re-
 joice that the law at last discourages so
 base an employment One correspon-
 dent thinks that instead of rejoicing
 at the dismissal of Glasgow bar-maids,
 we ought rather to deplore the exist
 ence of places of public resort so badly
 conducted as to render the presence of women undesirable" And vet this per son probably knows that Glasgow is the most drunken city in the world, and
 it is not possible so to conduct any drinking place that it should be de- sirabIe place for a woman, The sentl- mental objector speaks of two thousand bar maids the approver of the new or dnance estimates the number Of Glas- gov bar-maids as not more than one hundred and fifty; while another calls attention to the fact that South Austra- lia abolished bar-maids some years ago by act of Parliament,' and adds the significant fact that in South Aus tralia women have the parliamentary franchise. The London Dolly News | says of the question:
 It is declared that the magistrates of 1 Glasgow have decided upon q crusade against the employment of women in drinking bars. Any success in this di- rection would be another feather in the | cap of a city already known all over the | world as model of what a muncipali- ! ty should be. And the proposal has the | advantage that, as a piece of practical | reform, it may well unite | all sections of the movement against | the curse of drink. The evils sprnging | from this one source are obvious. In | addition to the direct danger of men, women and children arising from it, | thre are hers less direct and of these the stationing of young women in a bar is one of the most se- rious. There are few places in which more temptation is thrown in the way . . r-l faru in, i,l, the surroundings are more degrading, -he atmosphere more insidious the al- urements more constant. Drunkenness 'esorts continually to the public house; is constantly there, and here is no escape from one or the oth- or People of both sexes who never come into the lives of women otherwise employed are always in and out of the public c-house; sights are witnessed and words are used that soon break down he strongest self-respect. And to any me inclined to face facts, the reasons | why women are employed for this work lre obvious enough. They constitute In attraction: they are chosen for the thing cannot seriously be lened. For an example, in this re- peCl, we nave uIlly lp lJoN LO th tplll- . nunity from which we are already some other lessons of national importance In the United States, 1 - where the position of women is higher han anywhere in the world, it is, we elieve, almost everywhere the law that Q woman may be d bartender. Amer , gan legislation is not at all points , model for the imitation of a more an- tent and settled state, but nothing that ; not good can possibly result from