DRINKING SHOPS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 123, 1 June 1910, Page 2

DRINKING SHOPS.

AND A BISHOP'S DISCOVERY,

(By Harold Owen.)

Dr. Gore, Bishop of Birmingham, has come back from sunny Spain a convert to pubs. But I hasten, to say that the , startling statement needs some qualification. "Bishop Wants Public Houses!" runs the heading of the news, but the publichouse that the bishop wants is the Spanish public-house—which is no more like our "pub" than the Alhambra of Spam is like the Alhambra of Leicester Square. And I am afraid that for the bishop to wish for Spanish public-houses in England is to build chateaux-en-E'spange.

Bishop Gore seems to have taken very kindly to what was no doubt a new experience. For I do not suppose that the bishop has ever "sat for a long time on several occasions" in a London "pub," or even (for the London "pub" is niggardly of seating accommodation) stood for long at the bar. But when a Protestant bishop finds himself (if I may to express it, and return a doubtful compliment to our faith) in partibus infidelium, he may feel justified in taking his pleasures in the admirable spirit in which Charles Lamb used to go and witness a Restoration comedy, by letting convention take an airing out of the "strict diocese."

THE ENGLISH "PUB."

But, Dr. Gore had to go to Spain to make a 'discpvery which we have not yet made in England—that the association between public refreshment and sordid squalor, between drink and demoralisation, between public-houses and vulgarity, is not a necessary connection at all, but a voluntary one, and one almost entirely restricted to the Anglo-Saxon race. And until we make that discovery for ourselves, and insist on our publichouses being much more attractive places, our licensing laws will merely nibble at the fringe of the drink problem. For it is no paradox to say that the more attractive the public-house the less attractive' would be the drink. Our public-houses, externally and internally, are^ built and arranged with the deliberate object of making drink their only attraction. In England, everything about the place is subordinated to its drink-sell-ing function, and the "pub" is not so much a shop as a mere counter for the sale of drink. In the East End the "pub""is simply a filthy horror. We talk of the degradation of prison, but a prison, with its discipline and its sanitary cleanliness, is a wholesome place in comparison with the lower class East End "pub." Slop and sawdust lie on the floor, and never does even the comparatively wholesome air of the street get a fair entrance to combat the reek of shag and the drowsy staleness of beer. The windows do not open—they are

used chiefly to display hideous glass signs or a row of dummy bottles, and, in the summer, to accommodate blue bottles. Round the pens into which the interior is divided are ranged seats which make the, discomfort of standing preferable (and standing at the bar means "standing" drinks) ; penny-in-the-slot futilities add to the desolation; on the counter is a formal display of dreary uneatables; and the briefest visit is enough to show that the whole idea of the public-house as a place of "refreshment" and "social intercourse!' is grotesquely flattering. In the West End, "saloons" and "lounges" make some concession to. what ought to be the internal. arrangements of a public-house, and they certainly uphold, as far as they go, the theory that as public-houses advance in comfort and cleanliness the attraction of the drink declines. And that is the lesson that no doubt the Bishop learned in Barcelona.

WHAT IT FAS BECOME.

Whether we shall ever learn the lesson here it is hard to say. We have so much first to unlearn, and our insular form of public-house — the "pub"—has become so stereotyped that perhaps only slow modification is possible where revolution is necessary. The monopoly created by State licenses has, to begin with, consolidated into "the trade," and elevated into a political power, a tradesman's calling that xn other countries has no more political power, and not so much economic cohesion, as the trade of selling groceries or drapery. And the brewer, with his detestable tied-house system in his train, has complicated the problem enormously. Through him our inns have become "pubs"—the vile name for a vile thing—and the "pub" has become a drink shop pure and simple, structurally unfitted for anything elSe than to sell drink. The "bar" is the greatest bar we have to temperance — and

next to that impediment I should rank the temperance reformer who* believing that all drink is a degrading thing, would prefer that itshould be sold only in what he thinks fitly sordid and degraded premises. And his attitude has, in fact, reacted upon the policy of the "pubs" themselves, sanctioning tEeir hole and corner attributes, emphasising the furtiveness and disgraoefulness of the whole business, condoning those abominable screens that hide the nipper in one department from the soaker in another.

But under a rational conceptidn of the function of a public-house, all these partitioned pens of "bars" and "public bars" and "private bars" would be swept away, and the "pub" would become metamorphosed into what it ought to be, and in time even the word "pub" might 'vanish from the language it fails to adorn. Even a physical alteration and a structural re-arrangement of the interior of a "pub" would be, of themselves, almost enough to accomplish this moral metamorphosis.

WHAT IT MIGHT BE,

Imagine a public-house externally pleasing, having no feature in common with the "pub" as we know it, and internally consisting of one soberly and tastefully decorated room, well lit and well ventilated, filled with tabes and chairs, with waiters instead of potmen, or waitresses instead of barmaids, and the only bar in the place one at which the customers could not be served. Is it not obvious that in such a place, furnished and appointed according to its social scale in public-housedom and according to its ne:ghbourhood, with newspapers lying on the tables, and chairs provided to be.deliberately sat upon, with comfort to invite repose instead of discomfort that leaves drinking as the only resource—is it not certain that in such a place drink would cease to

be in the ascendant, and that there* would be more encouragement to talkand think than to sit and drink? But, it may be said, in describing: such ia place, I have been merely describing an ordinary cafe. I am afraid - that is so—l am afraid the reform of that "pub" offers no greater problem! than to follow the example discovered Ky the Bishop as already set us byother nations, with improvements and modifications suited to our national genius.

In England law, custom, and the public attitude have all conspired to make public houses nothing but drink shops, at which the contents of certain bottles and barrels are unceremoniously dispensed to people who are supposed to enter those housesonly to help to empty those bottles and barrels. But if drink, as is confessedly the case, offers the special problem that, unlike any other commodity consumed, it entails the perilsof degradation, then, surely, thegravest error is committed by concentrating the drink traffic into a specialised kind of shop for retailing drink. Tt is precisely because of this feature of drink that it is of paramount importance that the associations, and accompaniments, and environments of the sale should be made to counteract that tendecy as far as possible <

About seven members of the City Fire Brigade, including Superintendent Woolley, were suffering oa Inursday night from, acute inflammation of the eyes (states the Auckland Herald). The brigade was tj 0^ on Tnursday forenoon to subdue flames which had their origin in an electric wire carrying power from the city electrical works fusing at the top of Wellesley Street. The* wire ate into the pole, melting it, and emitting blinding flashes of light. The brigade turned a hose oa the pole, but this was ineffective. Then they threw sand at it 3 but thiswas not of much more advantage. Finally the current was cut off and the coruscations ceased. Shortlyafter returning to the station, themen who had been nearest the pole> complained of sore eyes, and at an early hour on Friday morning one or two of the men were in acuteagony, and a medical man had to be called in. It is supposed that the» bright light put too much of a strain * on the brigadesmen, who had to> stand within 10ft of it.

The Puniho toll gate (says the* Taranaki Herald) has been removed from its hinges, carried some distance away, and chopped up arief burned. A councillor, in reporting: the matter to the County Council, said the perpetrators had gone prepared with crowbars, screw wrenches, and even a tin of kerosene to assistin the burning. Whilst this was being done the toll collector and hiswife were sleeping in the toll house> about five yards away, and were not disturbed from their slumbers. Itwas "a neat trick well done?' said the councillor. The Council decided! to plac6 the matter in the hands of the police and to offer a reward of £10 for such information as will leadF to a conviction.

"God help the people who are going to live at Piako, said a witness before the Silting Commission, at Paeroa on Wednesday (reports the> New Zealand Herald), when referring: to the prevalence of floods in the Hauraki Plains, the district recentlyopened by the Government for selection. The witness remarked that thesettlers did not know what hardship* they were being let in for, because? there was actually an.overflow across country from the Waihou River in flood time, for a distance of 17 miles. The HauraH Plains, he said, were uk variably flooded badly in winter.