PRURIENT PUBLICAN.

NZ Truth, Issue 65, 15 September 1906, Page 6

PRURIENT PUBLICAN.

WHAT MAY HAPPEN TO A BARMAID.

Helpless Girl Compelled to Submit to Employer s Hateful Embraces.

Barmaids seeking employment, and not being desirous of beintr submitted to enforced adultery with their employer, will do well to # leave one Hawke's Bay township but of .their calculation. . •

Because there is a hotelke'eper up that way who, though a married man with, a family arid Jiving under the .same . roof with his wife, makes intimacy with his barmaids a sine-qua-uon of their retaining their position; and as. few girls are so advantageously 'fixed . .financially •:'. as to be able to defy. the threat of- bein f turned put of, the house without character o£, wages, at daylight, it is almost a .. certainty that this night prowling ritflian should and does succeed ill his .file intentions. '. So it was '''with, the handsome and ladylike young woman who has come to ''Truth' 1 with the story of ' her shame at the,, hands of this licensed, lecherous, loathsome ; -lump of human vileness. Sh^'was-accompanied by ai youmr man, s,n engineer by profession, but who, beinp: out of work and an American, took anything that offered rather than li>af arotrod , and the ' first thing that "offered; happened to be the berth .-. of- kitohcnman. at- the hotel alluded tc?. -Bte lias a grievance too. He Ayas, ! sele'cf^v for ;tii P billet, and was toMpn tins' 's'ecprid day dt his engagement, there ( iliat ..he would have to go a.'t the e'rid ipf the ! week, because he refused to 1 add 'to his^pw^ duties those of the day. porter:' 'lie, thus carried the niggardly * wagq' ';0f 17 ad and' it cost :him just thai; !tp' reach .Wellington again; /He; is now engineer of a coastal steamer; ','.' ',' .'. i

But what brought the. "ni4n to this office was 'not so much ; his own^tricky, 1 treatment as the' shdcking fate bf.hjs* fellow servant,' the barmaid. It.ap-j pears that he and his! mate ■ happened to see the. publican ' leaVe the barmaid's room '■ at midnight, m his r^famas, and he told her of it, when she made known to him her pitiful story. On Sunday, August 26, the landlord Had gone to her room—she had only just taken the' position and therefore offered by her freshness a spur to his lustr- and'lorccsd himself m. She .ordered him 'to leave her apartment when he braSenly told her that unless' - she consented to intimac^ he would turn ho; out at ' daylight. As she was . absolutely, without money,\ and had no means ,of gettino- back, to Wellington, she was forced to yield herself to his hateful embraces. He dniy "stayed ten minutes or so; being probably afraid that ■his wife, who' occupies a Doom adjoining his, with her. children, might happen to awaken and discover his. ' absence from his room ; and as he left he was seen f by the' kitbheftman and his mate. These two kept watch again and at 2 a-m. on the Wednesday niffht followihfif saw him enter and watched him leave the girl's room, wearing only his nyjamas; ■

In the morning th]?'i?irr#jgig told by the kitchenmah of what he had seen and she told the DubUcan he had teen watched. He then, m a grfeat istate of trepidation', offered • her' £10 to clear put by the express, as', if the story got about he would lose his license. The object of this is obvious. If he could have sot rid of the g^iri and the man;-, had exposed him, it would have be6n Jus word against that 0f.,. a _,' under, notice of iischarge and he could have brazened it, out. But as it happened the fellow reckoned without the girl's sense Df outrage and loathing and she flatly, refused to be bought off arid hustledaway, but waited and left at the same time as her fellow servant who accompanied her to,. Wellahgiton and brought her to this r office..

Is this a fij>;man to hold a .publican's license j; and •, to , have young.working wom&n . practically, at -the mercy of his lust ? is a question the police should . ask of . the licensing committee. He is notorious, it also appears , ' for ill-treatinp and chofusing; his employees, but as he keeps f hand and glove with all the.- pot-bellied, red-nosed J.'sP. of the p^ace it has always been found useless to tak^ him i;o court. Eveii'in this kitchenman's case he tried to cut /him out" of his week's pittance but sibon dropped the subject when dared to carry; out the snarling suggestion.