BARMAIDS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1168, 5 August 1885, Page 4

BARMAIDS.

The Government are not sound on the barmaid question. They have dealt with it in their Licensing Bill after a dilletante fashion. While admitting the evil they hesitate to apply the true remedy. Although quite aware of the terrible disclosures made before the Shop Commission respecting the hardships, temptations and dangers to which girls in hotel bars are exposed, the Ministry nevertheless are desirous of yielding something to public sentiment and prejudice. It is generally regarded as unjust and cruel to deprive all females employed in bars of a means of livelihood because the system has worked badly. When, however, all the' circumstances are reviewed and the facts made known, as they will be when the measure is debated in committee, few persons will deny that Parliament, instead of inflicting an injury, will be conferring a benefit upon young girls in prohibiting for the future the employment of females in public bars. In the majority of instances barmaids are obliged to work or remain in attendance, with, perhaps, an hour's intermission, from fourteen to eighteen hours daily, and often under conditions sufficient to try the fjpowers of endurance of the strongest man. From these and other causes unnecessary to mention they frequently contract ailments which completely undermine and permanently destroy their health. In many cases their surroundings and associations serve to contaminate their morals. Physical exhaustion drives many to the use of stimulants until it becomes a habit. The craving for excitement creeps upon them. They contract intimacies the reverse of desirable. In time their avocations play havoc with their attractions, and they become of less value to " draw " customers. They pass from one hotel to another, gravitating downward until lost sight of altogether. The system at the same time acts and re-acts, and, while the publican is thus making '•' flesh and blood so cheap," his victims are playing the decoys for the male sex whom they attract to the bars, and where they soon acquire a taste for drinking gambling and every species of dissipation. In the opinion of one whose evidence was authoritative — namely, the city missionary — the ranks of prostitutes are laTgely recruited by barmaids. The liquor traffic could receive no greater blow than the abolition of the barmaid system in the colony. — Melbourne " Leader."