Bar of England and Wales

“ In England, custom has, for many generations, decreed that women shall control the tone of social drinking in the public bars; and it must be registered to the credit of the host of honorable women who have served as bar-maids that the tone of public drinking in England has been lifted to a level that has not been attained in any other country. ”

“ The English bar in the Passage is a grill-room and restaurant, and ladies can lunch there, though the sporting British element is rather too prominent. In the evening it is frequented by the theatrical world and is practically open all night. One can enjoy a peaceable supper there without having to pay the bill and leave shortly after one has sat down, as is the custom in England. ”

“ A sporting baronet, who takes an interest in yachting; a dramatist, who has written more than one racing play, and no doubt finds the American Bar useful for his local colour; our cleverest caricaturist, and a dozen or two less well-known people, formed a solid mass before the bar, and occupied all the available tables. ”

“ The saloons seem to get the biggest part of miners' wages. They spend their money like lords. In no place are bars better patronized. A glass of beer costs 12 cents, and stronger drinks 24 cents. The barmaid, a woman engaged tending bars in public drinking places in British territories, is not seen behind the bar of saloons in cities and towns of the Transvaal, men being engaged at that work. ”

“ Several men of his own class were standing by him, and though early in the day, groups of gin-drinking men and women had assembled in the four compartments into which the bar was divided. The floor had been swept and covered with sawdust, which gave it a [131] comfortable appearance, while its spaciousness and highly-varnished hundred-gallon hogsheads, the gilded frame-work of the plate-glass panelling, the bright rows of wine and spirit bottles, and the active movements of the landlord and two barmen, rendered the place attractive and pleasant to the miserably clad customers. ”

“ Nor is any barrister permitted to hold direct communication with his client; he must receive his instructions from a solicitor, who acts as an intermediary. “Youth eats his way to the bar.” This curious custom of ”eating dinners" is a survival of an old legal way of insisting that students should be resident at the Inns of Court. Before a man can be called to the bar, he must keep twelve terms, of which there are four each year. ”

“ There is just the same rough familiarity, the same general ardour of character, the same kind of unwritten code of morals and manners, the same kind of public opinion expressed in exactly the same blunt, unmistakable manner.' It would astonish outsiders if they could hear the remarks sometimes addressed by the British barrister to his learned brother—especially on circuit. The bar, he concludes, 'are a robust, hard-headed, and rather hard-handed set of men, with an imperious, audacious, combative turn of mind,' sometimes, though rarely, capable of becoming eloquent. ”

“ In the meantime our constable had reached a small tavern in the vicinity of Regent Street. He entered the bar and, ordering a drink, took a seat in the corner of the spacious saloon. There were two or three people about; there were two or three men drinking at the bar and talking—men in loud suits, who cast furtive glances at every new-corner. He knew them to be commonplace criminals of the first type. ”

“ It is difficult to think that we really believe in banking, as the solid serious profession we talk about, when our banks are not only nearly as numerous, but very like our public-houses. Both are more often than not glorified corner shops. There is the public bar and the private bar in each. The public bar is of any shape so long as there is sufficient counter space, and the private bar or manager’s room has the same mahogany and frosted glass. Externally, each shows, too, a nice taste in pink, polished granite. ”

“ And has it ruined the Chancery Bar?—​ask them in 237 Lincoln’s Inn. The fact is that if we are to maintain in the face of better-educated and more thoughtful citizens the privileges and traditions of the Bar, we must satisfy ourselves and the world that the work we are doing is worthy, useful work beneficial to the community. When it fails to come up to that standard, it ought to be joyfully surrendered. ”

“ Clubs were multiplied ad infinitum by the more harmless civil wars between Whig and Tory; and ale and beer brought the middle classes together, as wine did the rich. Mug-house clubs abounded in Long Acre, Cheapside, &c.; "where gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen used to meet in a great room, seldom under a hundred," if we are to believe the Journey through England, in the year 1724. ”

“ No man ever attains a position at the Bar in which he can afford to despise the opinion of his fellow-men. The eulogies of public journals, even the praise and patronage of attorneys, are of no worth compared with the respect of the Bar. As a French advocate wrote: “A solid reputation proceeds only from the Court.”
Charles Russell, who stood on a somewhat lonely eminence at the head of his profession, and dealt with the affairs of his fellows in a very rough-handed and independent manner, was at heart very jealous of the good opinion of the Bar. ”

“ Often this lady is found presiding over an American bar, which is an institution now commonly met with in all parts of London. The American bar of London differs from the ordinary English bar of London in two respects, namely—there is an American flag draped over the mirror, and it is a place where they sell all the English drinks and are just out of all the American ones. ”

“ Bar could be light in hand, or heavy in hand, according to the customer he had to deal with. With Ferdinand Barnacle he was gossamer. Bar was likewise always modest and self-depreciatory—in his way. Bar was a man of great variety; but one leading thread ran through the woof of all his patterns. Every man with whom he had to do was in his eyes a jury-man; and he must get that jury-man over, if he could. ”

“ On their part, the Puritan Fathers seem to have taken the tavern under strict guardianship from the very first. In 1634, when the price of labor and everything else was regulated, sixpence was the legal charge for a meal, and a penny for an ale quart of beer, at an inn, and the landlord was liable to ten shillings fine if a greater charge was made. Josselyn, who was in New England at a very early day, remarks, that, “At the tap-houses of Boston I have had an ale quart of cider, spiced and sweetened with sugar, for a groat.” ”

“ In London it is calculated that about 6,500,000 barrels of ale, beer, and porter, are brewed annually, valued at about £20,000,000, and I think I am therefore correct in calling the English a beer-drinking people. ”

“ The conquests and triumphs of the American Bar in long years that have passed, attest its capacity, virtue, courage, and nobility for dealing with professional problems and difficulties that might have dashed the brightest hopes, or brought doubt to the stoutest heart. ”

“ The Committee concur in the statement of the Lords’ Report on the Sale of Beer Act, that ‘It was already sufficiently notorious that drunkenness is the main cause of crime, disorder, and distress in England; and it appears that the multiplication of houses for the consumption of intoxicating liquors, under the Beer Act, has risen from 88,930 to 123,306.’
8. That throughout the country ‘the publicans are completely under the thumb of the brewers.’
9. The trade of a publican is looked upon as a peculiar privilege. The hope of obtaining a licence increases beer-shops. ”

“ The records of all the authoritative bodies who dealt with the liquor traffic of the olden time are crowded with rules and regulations that plainly demonstrate not only the universal prevalence of beer drinking in a proper and domestic degree, but also the constant growing abuse of the sale of the liquor. In the reign of Elizabeth the evils of the tavern had become so notorious, that in some places women were forbidden to keep ale-houses. ”

“ When the applause that greeted this exchange of courtesies had subsided, Governor Dangerfield was still standing, and in a quiet conversational tone, and with a manner engagingly frank, he said:
"Before it seemed expedient to follow the reform bandwagon, I held certain principles touching the [Pg 402] drinking habit. But the American bar has destroyed drinking as a fine art, and it has now become a vulgar habit. In the good old times no gentleman ever jumped at his liquor. ”

“ Beer-house clubs are indeed a great abomination.
Some few existing societies are excellent precedents for the establishment of others. The Essex Provident Society has enrolled between 9000 and 10,000 members, and has a capital of between 70,000l. ”

“ Modern taste is conspicuous here, nothing is gaudy, colors are subdued, and its decorations are simple even the bar itself is refined, substantial, decorous, wanting entirely the meretricious glitter and barbarous ornamentation of the old structures of this sort, and the attendants have wholly laid aside the smart antics of the former bartender, and the customers are swiftly and silently served by the deferential waiters. ”

“ The preamble of the statute of 1604 is most valuable for the information it affords as to what the ancient Parliaments considered to be the legitimate use of a tavern.
Whereas the ancient, true, and principal use of wine, ale-houses, and victualling-houses was for the receipt, relief, and lodging of wayfaring people travelling from place to place, and for the supply of the wants of such people as are not able by greater quantities to [Pg 184] make their provision of victuals ”

“ Simon Slade elevated his person. "The men who visit my bar-room, as a general thing, are quite as respectable, moral, and substantial as any who came to the mill—and I believe more so. The first people in the place, sir, are to be found here. Judge Lyman and Judge Hammond; Lawyer Wilks and Doctor Maynard; Mr. Grand and Mr. Lee; and dozens of others—all our first people. No, sir; you mustn't judge all by vagabonds like Joe Morgan." ”

“ An inn or an alehouse, how­ever, was at the time of the Con­quest and for long after, far to seek. In the reign of Ed­ward I. there were on­ly three tav­erns in Lon­don, one in Chepe, one in Wall­brooke, and one in Lom­bard Street, and in coun­try dis­tricts the pro­por­tion to the pop­u­la­tion would doubt­less be as small, the want being sup­plied in the man­ner be­fore al­luded to. Even in the year 1552 the following list of the numbers of taverns allowed for the chief towns in England, no doubt shows a much smaller proportion to population than is seen at the present day. ”

“ To some extent this was the case, but a jury of bar-men would certainly agree in the opinion that this sly part of the house, into which so many well-dressed persons slip for their drams, is the most lucrative and usually the most crowded. Only a few weeks before, the visitor was standing with a young man in a similar compartment, when seven women, wives of working men, entered, and called for a quart of gin with ale glasses. ”

“ In English bars they neither shake nor meditate; they drink too uncritically the expression of the brewer’s artistic temperament, and give forth too little of their own. But, still, they are pleasant enough, these bars, whether British, as the gloomily popular Leicester Lounge, or foreign as the Monico. They have all the well-bred indifference of the Englishman who asks you no questions because he seeks no answers, who makes no comments because he has nothing to say. ”

“ The reign of the tavern still continued. Most of the citizens frequented the tavern every day. It was complained that the tradesman, who ought to have been in his shop, too often spent his mornings in the tavern, leaving his shop to the care of his ’prentices. ”

“ With these admirable axioms continually before it, the English trade has prospered amazingly. More drink and worse drink is sold in England to-day than has ever been sold in England before. Through legislation intended to ensure sound liquor and the proper conduct of licensed houses the proprietors have consistently made a point of driving the usual brewer's dray. ”

“ What can the poor publican do? Should he complain, he loses his licence, if the brewer has the ear of the magistrates, as we have seen proved. [7] That is, if he holds a free house, and the brewer holds the lease, and with it the customary "warrant of attorney," Messrs. Brewer and Co. enter up judgment, "Fi fa" his goods and chattek, and put in another man who will take it more kindly; one who more obsequiously draws their rot-gut stuff, and recommends his customers to cure themselves on the spot with cordial gin.
N.B. One scarcely ever gets a drop of good beer at a mere gin shop ”

“ In their Grand Days, equivalent to the gaudy days, or feast days, or audit days of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the Inns of Court still retain the last vestiges of their ancient jollifications, but the uproarious riot of the obsolete festivities is but faintly echoed by the songs and laughter of the junior barristers and students who in these degenerate times gladden their hearts and loosen their tongues with an extra glass of wine after grand dinners, and then hasten back to chambers for tobacco and tea. ”

“ This part of Westminster has always been full of taverns; first for the solace of the men-at-arms, afterward for that of the Members of Parliament. The tavern has always been the national place of recreation and rest ”