The San Francisco call., 1910-03-14
AMERICAN INNS"
LACK TRADITIONS
Few Shreds of History or Ten=
der Romance Around
Old Taverns

Old Taverns
There has been little, the merest
shreds of history or legend with ten
der romance. connected with old time
inns or taverns or drinking places in
this country, even though one go back
to colonial days to find #. Few writer's,
and these only by too evident effort,
have tried to adjust any sentiment
about these places of convivial enter
tainment. Even Longfellow, in his
'sWayside Inn,'' leaves out the clink of
glasses when he brings in his beauti-
full picture of the inn that autumn
night in Sudbury town, says the In
dianapolis News. The fact that We
have no traditions connected with
these places has perhaps aided in the
fight waged by temperance folk against
the successors to these older places,
which, leaving the name of inn and
tavern behind, adopted first the name
of barroom and later the even worse
one of saloon, worse because of its
tawdry French and its too evident mis-
fit to most of the places to which 1t
has been attached.
In England it is quite different. The
inn, the tavern, the alehouse are in
terwoven with all the history, the ira
ditions, the legends, the literature Of
the people, and though the cause of
temperance is marching on, in Britain
It encounters obstacles of long estab-
lished custom that temperance reform
has not met and will not meet here.
An interesting book by Frederick w.
Hackwood, on inns, Ales and Drink
ing Customs Of Old England" has just
icl1 in T
complete in its information on the
subject as expressed in the title that
it might be called an encyclopedia.
OF SAXON ORIGIN
The word linn itself is of good
Saxon origin, and at first signified a
chamber, although it came to be ap
piled generally to a mansion like the
French word hotel" The inns of the
fourteenth century found their regu
lar customers among the merchants,
small land owners, packmen and other
travelling members of the middle class.
That these various ranks fraternized
in these inns is shown from Chaucer's s
Canterbury Tales" where the knight
ly pilgrim does not disdain to dine
with miller, a cook and a plowman.
Among the curious things here mar
rated is one concerning the great Car
dinal Wolsey, then, about 1900, the
village feast was in progress. and the
vicar, Thomas Wolsey, becoming in
ebriated in the course of the days fes-
tivities, came in that condition under
the notice of an austere magistrate of
great authority, who, without more
ado, clapped the future cardinal into
the stocks to the scandal of his parish
toner's, though apparently not at all to
the detriment of the culprit's future
career.
In fact, the future cardinal was not
the only one of the clergy of his day,
and a much later day, to be overtaken
by drink, and Bishop Grindel, in his in
functions to the clergy. issued at York
in 1872, deals with the evil in the fol-
lowing order:
Ye shall not keep, or suffer to be
kept in your parsonage or vicarage
houses, tippling houses or taverns, nor
shall ye sell ale. beer or wine.
The practice in later centuries was
for the church wardens and the beadle,
or some church official. to sally forth
on Sunday morning at the commence
ment of the reading of the second
lesson and to visit all the public
houses in the neighborhood of the
church Any one found tipping dur
ing church service was instantly taken
and placed in the stocks. which not
infrequently stood near the churchyard
gate.
TEMPERANCE LEGISLATION
That temperance legislation of some
fashion began at a very early date is,
shown by statute of Edward ! G2S5),
which set forth that none but freemen
were allowed to keep alehouses in Lon
day. From the chronicle of an old his
torian it may be gathered that the at
tempt to limit the number of public
houses in a given area is not a modern
one He says: I'm the reign of King
Edward III only three tavernsY were
allowed in London--one in Chepe, one
in Walbrook and the other in Lombard
street" This legislation was evidently
leveled not at the inns, but the COM
mon alehouses and wine taverns used
as mexe drinking places
And There were disreputable and dam
gerous inns. One described by Stow
in his account of London between 1860
and 1890 depicts one kept by a kind
of Fagin of the time of Queen Eliza
beth: "One Wotton kept an ale
house near Billingsgate, and
in the same house he procured all the
cutpurses about the city to repair.
There was a school set up to learn
young boys to cut purses. Two de-
vices were hung up. The one was
pocket, the other was a purse The
pocket had in it certain counters and
was hung about with hawks bells
dllu oFOi ihS w oAd mans q llllc
sacring bell. The purse had silver
in it. And he that could take out a
counter without any noise was allowed
to be a public foyster. And he that
could take a piece of silver out OF the
purse without noise of any of the bells
was adjudged a judicial nypper, ac-
cording to their terms of art. A foy-
ster was pickpocket, nypper was
pickpurse or cutpurse."
ve---
The use of jrat skins in various in
dustries has created a demand in Lon
don alone to the amount of nearly
100000 a year. They are used, among
other things, for book binding, photo
graph frames. purses and for thumbs