Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-05-02
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.

LONDON, May 2z"Too old at
thirty" is the unhappy lot of the
British barmaid described in a report
by Mrs. Bernard Drake of an in
quiry made by the Women's In
dustrial Council.
Barmaids are a British institution.
Very few men are found behind the
bars in the saloons throughout the
United Kingdom. except proprietors.
There are $4,000 barmaids in England
alone. Frequent crusades have been
started with the purpose of eliminat-
ing women, and particularly girls,
from this vocation, but nothing last
ing has been accomplished. One rea-
son is that the saloon is the work
ing mans club, and he prefers those
places where he can gossip with the
girls. On the whole the influence of
barmaids is to raise the atmosphere
of saloons, but the influence of the
saloons upon the women is consider
ed bad.
"The barmaid soon grows DID," says
the report. Sometimes she is old
at twenty-five; she is generally too
old at thirty" Her chances of mar
rage are small unless she marries
the barman or the manager. and al
most the only recourse left to her
Is the streets. The number of women
oa the London streets who have once
been barmaids is out of all proper
ton to the total numbers in the
trade.
Mrs. Drake writes sympathetically
of the women behind the bars. She
says:
1.-THE barmaid is cheaper than the
barman. She is more Industrious,
more sober, more amenable to the
wishes of her employer, less rebelli-
Gus against the hard condition of
public-house life.
There are women, women of fine
character, who earn in the bar a
decent and respectable living, and are
not unhappy. There is even woman
of robust health and temperament,
who finds in the public house a GER
tain vocation. The bar is to other
women immediate ruin.
But all these are exceptions. The
barmaid who is of the majority, al
though she loses nothing of self re-
spect, yet continues at her post only
In WEAKNESS and loathing, and with
a great fear in her heart of that
which the future is to bring"
Wages for barmaids are no more
than domestic servants command in
the United States, and the average
working day is fourteen hours. In
houses patronized by workingmen the
average pay is 50 so to $500 a week:
in hotels it may rise to $3.50, and for
a head barmaid to $3.50 or even So.
Board and lodging are always fur
nished, but the girls are expected to
dress well.
The harm oil
Drake, belongs to the type of normal
and average working girl, industrious
sober and honest, although she is to
be distinguished from her sisters by
a greater measure of the love of
youth for adventure. She seldom
adopts the career as the result of a
false step. The workingman seldom
losses his respect for the barmaid as
woman worker; 1t is reserved for
the man about town to be without
all sense of honor or chivalry to
women. Young and pretty girls are
deliberately chosen for the West End
saloons, which are the resorts of
dissolute men and fallen women, be-
cause the inexperienced girls attract
the men. They are given no protec-
ton by the their employers.
The Easter holiday scene on Hamp-
stead Heath, where London factory
girls have their annual parade and
picnic, was altogether changed this
year. The fiaring and multifarious
petticoats which the East End girls
have Haunted each new season were
Most of the East End bellies
had taken up the new fashions and
their taste In dress seemed to bear
tribute to the college settlement
workers of the poorer districts. lE