The Barmaid.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 176, 25 March 1873, Page 7

The Barmaid.

t Tae following severe strictures on placin'* young girls behind the bars of public-houses “suggested in the New York Thrall by a Show” that took place in London : y Ino barmaid is the agent of the publican l n ““Pensing beer. She (for the sex is female) Is , a bedizened creature, a frivolous creature, ■Uard-worked creature, whose duty it is to ' an< behind the bars of liquor stores and p.i.np beer for the multitude, receivin'* J exchange the pennies for the landlord and "J™. 6 ™amllm stuff which man is capable of , i-mg m a woman’s ear for her own share, nw shocbjHg this must be at times can be calculated by the ratio in which drinking in- ,' ICOB immoralities to bubble filthily from V ‘PS- This is her lot year in and year y , and w «at wonder if she is generally the end and something to be hidden 2 , t] ] e c y° of d 'iy ' It is, in fact, a a e school of gradual debauchery for women, fom whose depths but a favoured few, a cry tow,_ can escape. Amid the blaze of the • (1 y gin-palace she drinks in the infection irl(' e P° rha PS s be assists the process by L the brandy-keg, at first to of t f S 1 1,lt ? ier °.^ os ) bist as a necessity nl!u feVenSl Cxistcnco - The barmaid is a physical attraction, chosen for L n ! 3 \, the buullord as one would choose a and mir l ? ni , ust I<ee P up this appearance i cmtiw-te slang as another portion of her ‘H trade. Ihe refined taste which in

England demands this sad exhibition of womanhood has, however, of late gone a step further, and got together an exhibition of this very class. Fifty flashy girls were set behind fifty bars in a place in the suburbs of London, and the British public were invited to come and guzzle beer, and in guzzling to denote their admiration of the barmaid to their fancy by dropping a ballot in her favor. A prize of a gold watch was to be the guerdon of her who took the most money and received _ the largest number of votes. And the British public came in thousands to swill, to talk slang, to guzzle, and to vote that fifty girls might be booked as surely for perdition as their nonsense could But then to look beyond and observe the thousands of barmaids in London longing for and enjoying the fame of Miss Somebody, who could pump so much more beer, look so much prettier, or so much faster, and talk so much slang ! It is safe to say that nothing more demoralising than this system exists in any country, whether for the luckless girls themselves or the silly youths or sillier men whom these beauties of the beer-barrel so often lure into dishonesty and crime by only listening to and smiling at their inanity and hinted or open indecency of conversation.- It is a process which has its revenge on both sides ; for the bedizened barmaid is held in the toils she has drawn around her admirers.”