THOSE BARMAIDS.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 950, 13 March 1897, Page 3

THOSE BARMAIDS.

They Are So Degraded, You Know.

. Mrs Schnackenberg and the other gimlet ladies of the Women's Christian Temperance Union sat in Bolemn judgment a few days "back upon the barmaids of New Zealand. With uplifted hands, and upturned eyes, Mrs Schnackenberg declared to her sharp-visaged fellow reformers that the occupation of a barmaid was a most degrading one, that her surroundings were vile, and that it was the duty of the sharp-visaged ones aforesaid to rescue the barmaid from these surroundings and lead her to a higher and better life. To all of which Bentiments we suppose the Christian Temperance women sighed a unanimous assent, as they piously rolled their eyes and thanked Heaven they were ' not like nnto one of these.'

Wow, the Observer does not for one moment pat forward the business of a barmaid as the most desirable one to apprentice your daughter to. But, at the same time, we are not prepared to roll our eyes heavenwards in sympathy with Mrs Schnackenberg, and agree with all she says. There are barmaids and barmaids, and, as a rule, they are not the depraved creatures that Jklrs Schnackenburg represents them to be. Moreover, they are not barmaids from choice, but rather from necessity, and if some of them were women of ease, they might possibly become a "Woman's Christian Temperance Unionist just as Mrs Schnackenberg is, and set out on a chronic mission to reform their neighbours and the world in general. But they are not women of ease. They are chiefly women of

necessity, and choose this employment because it pays them a living wage, and not because they have any desire to be degraded or anrroaaded with anything vile.

More than that, Mrs Schnackenberg has probably never been in a hotel bar in her life, and doesn't know whether the surroundings are vile or not. It suits her argument to say- they are, and, no doubt, she thinks they are, which is probably much about the same thing to Mrs Schnackenberg. But the surroundings of a barmaid are chiefly what she herself makes them, and if she is a girl who respects herself and is well-behaved and modest, she is reasonably certain to be treated with respect, even by the habitues of such a vile place as a hotel bar.

Mrs Schnackenberg wonld probably be pnzzled to suggest the better life into which these barmaids might be led ? Would she make waitresses of them? This wonld not improve matters much, because the surroundings of a waitress do not always conduce to morality, and it depends chiefly upon the girl herself whether she avoids the temptations set in her way or not. Possibly Mrs Schnackenberg would condemn them to service in a factory, but there the. surroundings are in four cases out of six even more vile than those of the hotel bax. Contrast the average barmaid with the genus larrikin e for which our factory life is responsible, and say which is the better or more estim-

able woman of the two. There is no question, Mra Schnackenberg, that the barmaid would stand the test of snch a comparison. Mrs Schnackenberg is one of the relics of the good old school that regarded actors as the disciples of the evil one, playing cards as the devil's bible, while dancing was the pastime of hell itself, and such things as horse - racing and theatre-going, diversions of the utterly lost. She means well enough, but she doesn't know too much about the world and its wicked ways, and in her tirade against barmaids and their occupation her zeal has carried her beyond the bounds of discretion and good taste. There are women employed in the hotel bars of Auckland to-day, who, in their private life, are no les3 estimable and virtuous than Mrs Schnackenberg. Their duties are not the most pleasant in the world, and they occasionally hear language and witness sights which are distasteful to them, but notwithstanding this they are everything but the de. graded creatures Mrs Schnackenberg represents them to be. Also, they can afford to dispense with the cheap pity and sermonizing sympathy of Mrs Schnackenberg and the other gimlet ladies of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.