Bar (geography)

“ Four bars extend outward from an upright post placed in the middle of the floor, and a large flat stone is fastened to the end of each bar by means of a rope. A horse is hitched to one of the bars, which is purposely left longer than the others. ”

“ All surface diggings, when marked out, or laid off in small plats, are called bars; and these bars are known by distinctive names, as, for instance, Rocky Bar, Steep Bar, Sandy Bar, &c. The name is not always derived from a peculiarity of the place. Frequently they are called by the names of the men who first discovered gold on them, as Brown’s Bar, Hall’s Bar, Drake’s Bar; and sometimes they take their names from an important event that occurred at or near them at the time they were opened, as Highwayman’s Bar, Rioter’s Bar, Murderer’s Bar. ”

“ There are rich harvests for the hungry on these wide reaches of the sandflats, and even a glutton bird could gorge his fill upon the prey entrapped in the fish-weirs that dot the inner coast.
There, at one point, the tide marches out a long mile to the Great Bar and back again, by appointed channels, unhurrying, punctual to the minute, to keep its tryst with the shore. Sailors, unless they have a care to the time, are likely to be “hung up” on the Bar; but for one ashore who looks out to the white line of breaking foam, every moment of the ebb and turn has its special beauty. ”

“ Not a spot of verdure is to be seen on this place, but the glorious hills rising on every side, vested in foliage of living green, make ample amends for the sterility of the tiny level upon which we camp. The surrounding scenery is infinitely more charming than that of Rich Bar. The river, in hue of a vivid emerald, as if it reflected the hue of the fir-trees above, bordered with a band of dark red, caused by the streams flowing into it from the different sluices, ditches, long-toms, etc., which meander from the hill just back of the Bar, wanders musically along. ”

“ A little farther, and there is a great open arch, running far to the rear—a beer-house—the space between the street and the bar filled with tables bearing brown loaves cut in quarters, Semmel, and corpulent sausages. Turn which way you will, you find an endless diversity. ”

“ The bar-room was lighted and filled with men. Some of them were drinking and eating; others were strapping provisions into portable form. Against the corner of the bar a tall figure of a man leaned smoking—a man lithe, active, and muscular, with a keen dark face, and black eyebrows which met over his nose. ”

“ On the ground-floor there is a spacious and scrupuluously clean bar, and the bar space in front is partly occupied by a bagatelle-table for the innocent amusement of those who have neither taste nor talent for dancing. ”

“ Bar Practice.—Interior of a tavern, guests at tables; in the front of the picture is the saloon; a showy counter-maid is compounding a bowl of punch for a brace of customers, a military and a sporting buck, who are leaning over the bar and exchanging pleasantries with the landlady. ”

“ The scenery along the coast is bold and impressive, stupendous cliffs rising abruptly to the height of several hundred feet. Bar Harbor is plentifully supplied with hotels, and their facilities are often utilized by the throngs of artists and pleasure-seekers who make summer pilgrimages in search of the beautiful, the art galleries and studios of the country testifying to the success of the former in transferring to canvas the gems of scenery which have formed the basis of so many studies and afforded so much delight. ”

“ The visitor will notice that drinking bars are invariable and very disagreeable accompaniments of every theatre. One bar is generally just opposite the entrance to the dress circle, an arrangement which is particularly annoying to ladies. ”

“ Each saloon is to consist of a single room, with only one exit and entrance, with the bar in plain view from the street, and with no chairs or furniture except such as are necessary for the attendants. ”

“ Those who dwell here the year round find most satisfaction when the summer guests have gone and they are alone with freaky nature. “Yes,” said the woman in charge of one of the cottages, “I've lived here the year round for sixteen years, and I like it. After we get fixed up comfortable for winter, kill a critter, have pigs, and make my own sassengers, then there ain't any neighbors comin' in, and that's what I like.”
VII. BAR HARBOR
The attraction of Bar Harbor is in the union of mountain and sea; the mountains rise in granite majesty right out of the ocean. ”

“ A drinking bar is nearest to the street where its polished brasses catch the eye. It holds a gilded mirror to such red-faced nature as consorts within. Yet you pass the bar and come upon a range of tables at the rear.
Now, if you yield to the habits of the place you order a rump of meat. Gravy lies about it like a moat around a castle, and if there is in you the zest for encounter, you attack it above these murky waters. "This castle hath a pleasant seat," you cry, and charge upon it with pike advanced. ”

“ On the right-hand side, nearest the door, is the bar, over which presides a genius of the male sex, whose chief attractions consists of a decided red head, and an immense paste breastpin, stuck into the bosom of a ruffled shirt. The bar is well furnished, and any drink called for, from beer to champagne, can be instantly obtained. ”

“ The speaker was a man of not over thirty years of age. With unsteady step he entered the bar-room again, and pushed his way to the double line that kept the bar-tenders perspiring as they sought to respond to the sometimes cursing demands for more rapid service.
1. A Western Lumber Camp. 2. Lumber Camp Group in Sunday Attire.
3. The Day's Work Ended. 4. A Typical Bar-room
"In some districts fully 75% of shanty men's earnings goes over the bar. ”

“ Since the bridges have been swept away, I have been to Rich Bar but once. It is necessary to go over the hill now, and the walk is a very wearisome one. It is much more pleasant to live on the hills than on the Bar, and during our walk we passed two or three cozy little cabins, nestling in broad patches of sunlight, and surrounded with ample space for a promenade, which made me quite envious. ”

“ The bar is one of the most—if not the most—important departments in the hotel; comparatively nothing is drunk at dinner, but the moment the meal is over, the bar becomes assailed by applicants; moreover, from morning to midnight, there is a continuous succession of customers; not merely the lodgers and their friends, but any parties passing along the street, who feel disposed, walk into the bar of any hotel, and get "a drink." The money taken at a popular bar in the course of a day is, I believe, perfectly fabulous. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The space between the bar, which ran across one end of the room, and the billiard-tables, was the favourite nightly resort of the prominent politicians and gamblers. There, if anywhere, my questions would be answered.
On entering the billiard-room I was struck by the number of men who had come together. Usually only some twenty or thirty were present, half of whom sat smoking and chewing about the bar, while the rest watched a game of billiards or took a “life” in pool. ”

“ An exception is the bar, which, of course, was a fixture and part of the inn structure. Our modern bar with its almost invariable ugliness, its row of vertical handles for drawing beer, and its aggressive [Pg 245] cash register, is a poor survival of the Jacobean bar, an example of which is still in existence at the Maid’s Head, Norwich. It is worthy of recollection that the high stools which enable one to sit at a bar are quite of modern origin. Bar lounging evidently did not become a habit until the nineteenth century. People sat down and had their refreshments at ease. ”

“ The barkeeper and proprietor, both in their shirt sleeves, are behind it. On one side of the bar is a slightly-raised platform, upon which is a piano-player, a violinist and a shrill fifer. This is the music that charms and attracts. Around the room are men of all kinds, sailors, laboring men, seedy individuals, lovers, thieves, a few poor gamblers, fellows in hard luck and waiting for "something to turn up." Sprinkled over the place, talking, laughing, joking and striving to induce them to buy drinks, are a number of the waiter girls. ”

“ So we got into our wagon, with the fish, and drove to Robinson's tavern, almost five miles off, where we supped and passed the night. In the bar-room was a fat old countryman on a journey, and a quack doctor of the vicinity, and an Englishman with a peculiar accent. ”

“ Bar-rooms are annexed to every species of public building,—in the theatres, in the hotels, in the bath-houses, on board the steam-boats,—and there are even temporary buildings which serve this purpose erected at certain distances along the rail-roads. Though the gentlemen drink more than any other gentlemen, the lower orders here are more temperate than with us. The appearance of a drunken man in the streets is comparatively rare here ”

“ I find here a race very marked in its characteristics, altogether in harmony with the soil that supports it; meagre, gloomy, rough, and angular in its forms and in its instincts. At the tavern every one has his knife in his belt, and he drives the point into the lower face of the table, between his legs; after that they talk, they drink, they contradict one another, they become excited, and they fight. The houses are of an incredible dirtiness. ”

“ At the distance of a league from the harbour's mouth is a bar, on which at low water, not more than fifteen feet are to be found. Within this bar, for many miles up the S.W. arm, is a haven, equal in every respect to any hitherto known, and in which any number of ships might anchor, secured from all winds. ”

“ There is no one to be seen. It is a cold, frost-strong, clear morning. There is no one in the bar. We stumble down the dark tunnel passage. The stanza is as if no man had ever set foot in it: very dark, the mats against the wall, the fire-place grey with a handful of long dead ash. Just like a dungeon. The dining-room has the same long table and eternal table-cloth—and [Pg 207] our serviettes, still wet, lying where we shovelled them aside. So back again to the bar.
And this time a man is drinking aqua vitae, and the dirty-shirt is officiating. ”

“ As evening began to fall, the gambler's unsuccessful pursuers, one after another, found their way to the tavern, and by the time night had fairly closed in, the bar-room was crowded with excited and angry men, chafing over their disappointment, and loud in their threats of vengeance. That Green had made good his escape, was now the general belief ”

“ 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. ”

“ Long Figures, on the other hand, occupy a strain of eight bars in long measure—a strain being that part of an air which is terminated by a double bar, and usually consists in country dances of four, eight, or sixteen single bars. ”

“ Those bars have been abolished, and, under the present system, an effort is being made to furnish homelike, attractive club-houses, where the enlisted men may pass their leisure time in comfortable chairs, with pleasant surroundings, games, newspapers, magazines, books, writing materials and a well-filled library. We give them a lunch-room and a bar which are much more attractive than any of the native bazaars can offer. ”

“ A bar, at which all kinds of liquors, raw and mixed, pure and sophisticated, are dealt out, is attached to each of these establishments; and it is generally a greater source of profit to the proprietor than the table. ”

“ The little affair at once roused in Old Sharp's mind the recollection of many a scene, and hair-breadth escape, and [44] he went on to relate several adventures of his own, with "bar;" our conversation, of course, being carried on in a whisper; and he concluded his narratives with: "but la, boy, the bars a'in't savage in this country like they are furder north; they git plenty to eat in the southern country, but furder north, 'specially in the winter season, when pressed with hunger, they git terribly severe." ”

“ No expense is spared to attract custom, the bar-keepers are “artists” in their profession; rich soft velvet sofas and rocking-chairs invite the lounger; but popular feeling runs strongest in favour of the saloon that contains a pretty woman to attend the bar. ”

“ In the 18th century Balasore rapidly declined in importance, on account of a dangerous bar which formed across the mouth of the river. At present the bar has 12 to 15 ft. of water at spring-tides, but not more than 2 or 3 ft. at low water in the dry season. Large ships have to anchor outside in the open roadstead. ”

“ And then the country tavern, whose long shed and sanded hall give surety to the stranger and his beast of a comfortable noon-tide baiting; or, in the more solitary townships, where the places of entertainment are few and far between, the quiet nook by the forest road-side, where the dipper hangs beside the overflowing water-trough, and the guide-board measures out the long miles between him and his evening resting-place; each and all objects of pleasant recollection to the traveller, as he muses upon his journeyings in after life. ”