New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1874.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4209, 16 September 1874, Page 2

New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1874 .

We have to apologise to Mr. Fox for so long neglecting his tirade against barmaids, on the Licensing Bill, and to the industrious and useful class of young women whose reputation he most ignorantly aspersed, for not sooner saying at least a word or two in their defence. His speech was delivered in committee of the House of Representatives, and was not reported in Hansard. It was replied to felicitously, effectually, and with considerable irony, by the Premier ; but as his speech, too, passed unrecorded, the matter might have been allowed to drop. But Mr. Fox is an Englishman, and the common saying has it that an Englishman never knows when lie is beaten. He appears, moreover, to have been particularly satisfied with a speech which, made from very high ground indeed, created only astonishment and laughter in Parliament; and he has used his privilege to insert articles in the columns of this journal to reproduce all the leading features of that speech, but has left out of sight all that was said in reply. That was a month ago ; and we have but to plead the pressure of more important business for neglecting to remind the hon member for Rangitikei that however much the better of the argument he may appear to have had in the House, as shown in his special column on* this matter, he was most easily, completely, laughingly, and sarcastically disposed of on the occasion to which he referred. His argument—and we give it briefly if not literally—was that no father with properly constituted feelings would take his young sou by the hand, introduce him to a publican, and ask Boniface to take him as an apprentice; that no mother, with a proper natural heart in her bosom, would think for a moment of allowing the darling of her eyes to go behind a bar to earn a living by supplying even “ a pot o’ the smallest ale” to a thirsty traveller, or minister to the wants of say a couple of antiquated politicians, with strong opinions in their noddles on various subjects, who desired to discuss them over a glass of toddy, made of the best Glenlivet or “Long John,” in the “ snug bar-parlor.” The answer of the Premier was that there were a good many duties to be done in social life—duties that were indispensable to the safety as well as the comfort of society—to the performance of which neither the hon. member for Rangitikei nor himself, nor any member of the House, would be willing to train their sons or daughters. There was, said the Premier, the necessity of providing for the safety of the life ani property of the lieges by means of the police force. The institution was a highly honorable one—but he did not think that Mr. Fox, any more than himself, would deliberately train a son to fill the position of a parish constable, or even the higher and most useful position of a detective. It was necessary that there should be persons to wait at table—at Bellamy’s, for example—but he did not think that the hon. member, anymore than himself, would caro to specially train a son to put on livery, and attend behind the chairs of hon. members, to supply them with soup, or fill their wine-cups from time to time. But there were still humbler duties to be performed in such a city as Wellington, said the hon. the Premier—duties which were essential to the health of the City, indispensable to the comfort of the inhabitants, neither pleasant nor attractive, and that could only be performed in the night. He did not think, said the Premier once more, that either the hon. member for Rangitikei or himself would wish to train a son to perform those duties ; and the roar of laughter with which this home-thrust was received by the Committee, and the astonished and confounded look of Mr. Fox himself, showed how exquisite was the sarcasm, and how true the commonsense, with which the train of thought of tho ‘ ‘ friend ” of the waiter and the barmaid had been fallowed up to a natural though it might be an unexpected conclusion. It is needless to remind the hon. member for Rangitikei that from tho moment tho Premier concluded his impromptu and spirited defence of tho classSs that hon. member maligned while he professed to defend, tho House was in no humour to hear in a serious mood any more talk on tho subject. All tho remaining clauses of iho Bill on the subject of barmaids were dealt with in a spirit of which tho hon. member did not approve, but which convoyed to him, as plainly as any hint could do, that he had done and wds doing an injury to a class of respectable people, who were doing their best to earn an honest living, and who di(l not justify tho unfavorable estimate which the Apostle of Temperance in this Colony had formed of them. Tho application of tho argument of tho Premier is so easy and so practical that

it scarcely needs to be insisted upon. It is simply a repetition of the plain truth, that all members of society have not been placed by the accident of birth and fortuitous circumstances on the same footing. There are duties and duties. If there are “ honorables ” in the State, there must be Jeames Yellowplushes to wait upon them. When Lord Amherst, on his great embassy to Pekin, presented the Emperor of China with a State coach, the Brother of the Sun is reported to have mounted the box, as being, in his Celestial estimation, the place of honor, while the coachman was put inside, with the reins through the windows. How they drove through the narrow streets of Pekin, how many Children of the Sun and Moon perished on the causeway, how narrow were the escapes and how serious the frights of the Emperor before lie returned to the Palace, may be imagined. Mr. Fox’s view of the relations of society is just as absurd, dangerous, and impracticable. A waitress in a temperance cafd or in an eating-house is indispensable. Females are better fitted for the business than men ; their services are more in consonance with nature, more pleasant to those who require to be waited on, and certainly much more acceptable to .the ladies who have to be attended to in confectioners’ rooms and cafes in ‘ ‘ empire cities,” than those of men would be. Yet we have never heard it argued that the business of a waitress was one which it was degrading for a young woman, not born to fortune, not educated sufficiently to earn her livingas a teacher or governess, and without influence to obtain employ ment in the new departments opened to them in the Government service, to follow. In a bar a young woman may be expoaod In more meaningless flirtation than in a coffee-room ; but it is beyond a doubt that, but for the opportunities that are so presented to young women whom circumstances force to seek a living for themselves, and possibly for helpless and dependent friends, by service in a bar, much greater evil might follow. Many of these young women have made admirable matches, though their acquaintance with their husbands may have been made over the bar ; arid, as wives, they have not been less indus-' trious, honest, and faithful—good wives and good mothers —than if they had been born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and had been privileged to think when in their teens of nothing more serious than the fabrication of slippers or braces tor a favorite curate, or to try to the death the strings of a piano in their attempts to master a mystery for which nature gave them no natural endowments. It -is not ignorance, but sheer and wilful blindness, which induces Mr. Fox and his friends to profess a belief that the barmaid is necessarily less moral than other women of her age, because she requires to dress a little more smartly, and to chatter a good deal more, than if she sat all day over a sewing machine, or tried to please a hard mistress by scrubbing floors and cooking dinners. If these particular “ friends” of the barmaid would look a little nearer home, they would probably be forced to acknowledge that domestic circles are sometimes not more free from scandals than the hotel bar ; that even those societies which attempt and profess most in the best of causes have not been free from their black sheep. They should weigh well their secret souls, those, who, like the temperance reformer of Rangitikei and Ills wellmeaning but injudicious friends; attempt to cast the stone of reproach at the barmaid.