Barmaids at Home and Abroad.

White Ribbon, Volume 8, Issue 94, 1 March 1903, Page 8

Barmaids at Home and Abroad.

The activity of the branches in regard to the barmaid question has lx*en frequt ntly commented on in the Press of late. At Birmingham they are inaugurating a series of meetings with the object of arousing public opinion on the subject. This is lx?ing done to meet the proposal at Birmingham to establish a friendly society for their benefit. The feeling is grow ing that the last place for a woman is txdiind a liquor bar. It is, indeed, a crying shame that so much of the womanhood of the country should be exploited to lure men to drink, and the fact of America and our own colonies, where public sentiment is dead against that kind of thing, is having a salutary influence. It was a thousand pities that at a recent 1 conference of worn n workers, highly placed ladies should ha'c practically defended the bail custom on the ground of it depriving women of an occupation, and that many of those so employed were atiove suspicion morally. While ihis is not to lx* denied, the tendency of the system as a whole is distinctly evil. All Over The World this is being recognised—in Austria, lately in Hungary, and again in connecj lion with the new liquor laws in the Transvaal. These laws are necessarily experimental, but it is expiessly laid down in the new oidinance that “no holder of any retail license shall employ a female to serve at the bar in selling or supplying intoxicating liquors.” The prohibitory ordeis in Bengal and Bur-

mah, which the respective LieutenantGovernors promoted, have U*en rescinded, it is stated, at the instigation of the liquor sellers, though the Secret«ry for India lias assured Parliament it v .»s in consequence of legal difficulty that had arisen, whic h it was the intention to remove. A recent writer denounces the pernicious influence of imported European hat maids in India, and declares that British prestige is lowered by their presence. “ Though by no means intelligent,” he says, “the native is quick to observe anything which is to the discredit of his white masters. And when he sejs a numlrer of foolish young men night after night paying attentions of an unseemly description to the barmaids, he argues that the English cannot, after all, l>e so great a race as he had been led to imagine if they allow their * miss sahibs ’ to l>e placed in so improper a position.” English White Kiblwn. ♦