A BARROOM FOR LADIES

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1881

A BARROOM FOR LADIES.

SPEAKING of the fashionable women of New York "who are financially able to gratify their longings," the Cincinnati Enquirer says:—

Shopping is their diversion and delight. They spend the livelong day going from store to store, whether they intend to buy anything or not. They do not stop to go home for a midday meal, but they buy a lunch wherever they chance to be when eating time comes. In one of the largest fancy goods establishments in the city a restaurant fifty feet square does a rushing business, and a soda-water fountain fizzes continuously. But the latest project for the refreshment of fashionable women is a bar. Now barrooms in which disreputable women drink are no novelty, but this is no such concern. It is as respectable as it is unique. It is in Broadway, close to Stewart's great mart and Wallack's theater, in the midst of handsome retail establishments. The front is resplendent with plate glass, and the store itself is wide, deep, and elegantly fitted up. The walls and ceiling are frescoed, and the floor is marble. One side is devoted to the sale of confectionery. That shows the proprietor's shrewdness, for women probably would not go in if there was nothing but a bar in the place. The bar runs along the opposite side, and is about the same in style as those of the best cafes, though the marble counter is a little lower. An immense mirror faces the drinkers, and the back-bar is adorned with cut glasses and decanters. Instead of a beer pump, however, there is a soda fountain. Piles of lemons, an ornamental lemon-squeezer, groups of ginger-ale bottles, and pyramids of silver Tom-and-Jerry cups, make a display as gorgeous as can be found on any bar in the city. Two bar-tenders, of the regulation pattern, with their hair and mustaches carefully brushed, diamonds glistening on their polished shirt-fronts, and the sleeves of their white coats turned up at the elbows, are constantly on duty. The women walk up just like little men, and order their drinks with the careless air of veterans. The enterprise has been under way only a few weeks, and is already an established success.

The beverages are about what might be expected. "Hard liquors" are not sold, except in mixed drinks, as in Tom-and-Jerries, on which the run during the present cold weather is brisk. They are made hot and sweet, and the women dote on them. The next most popular drink just now is hot punch, composed of rum, lemon-juice, water, and a dash of brandy. Sometimes seltzer is ordered in place of the water. Hot coffee, chocolate, and lemonade are also sold in large quantities. On days of moderate temperature the call is for cold lemonade, claret punch, ginger ale and soda water. While I was there yesterday the pop of the ale-bottle was momentary, and the lever of the lemon-squeezer was in almost constant motion. Women stand three feet deep in front of the bar. Two companions drank together, and each paid for her own dissipation; but, as a rule the gentle tipplers gracefully imitated polite bar-room manners, though they were given to sipping their beverages slowly, instead of tossing them into their mouths like so much medicine.

"What are you going to drink?" said a mild-faced sapling of a girl in a cloak of satin matelasse and a blue capote.

"It's my treat this time," replied a cherry-lipped dumpling of a belle in maroon velvet.

"No, no; you bought yesterday. Come, what'll you take?"

"A seltzer lemonade."

"Make me a Tom-and-Jerry, sweet."

So the confusion of orders and the eager drinking went on. I asked one of the bar-tenders why he didn't keep lager beer on tap, since New York women drink it at home and in the concert gardens so generally. He said, "Oh, we want to go slow at first—don't want to startle our customers too much; but we'll give 'em beer as soon as warm weather comes."