Saloon keeper

“ The proprietor of the new saloon was the old saloon-keeper's son-in-law, and these, with their flourishing and, no doubt, amiable families, were socially gathered on the shady side of the Life-Saving Station. The shade was much the same sort that is furnished by trees in more favored localities, and the population of Grub City was enjoying itself. The rival wives, mother and daughter, ample, rosy women, were busy stitching baby clothes. Children already arrived were playing with a soap-box and choice pebbles and a tin mug at keeping saloon. ”

“ Yonder is a man intoxicated. He staggers and falls; his head strikes the curb-stone; the blood besmears his face; the police lift him up and start with him to the station house. Did you hear a saloon keeper say: "That's my creation; I put up that job and I'm proud of my work."
Some one said recently in defense of the business: "The saloon keeper deserves more consideration." This writer should know that consideration has been the source of its undoing. Lord Chesterfield considered it and said: "Drink sellers are artists in human slaughter." ”

“ It is astonishing, however, how large a number even of little girls and boys ten years old or less, walk boldly out of the front door with their pails. Almost every saloon has also its line of ragged urchins, crouched on their hands and knees on the stone doorstep, peering under the screen at the crowd within. Occasionally, on gala Saturday nights, a group of men will hold what is known as a “beer racket.” Each one contributes a sum of money, fifty cents, a dollar, or sometimes more, to a saloon keeper, who agrees to furnish all the beer they can drink. ”

“ All of this might seem diabolical, but the saloon-keeper was in no wise to blame for it. He was in the same plight as the manufacturer who has to adulterate and misrepresent his product. If he does not, some one else will; ”

“ One could never get in advance more than a guess as to this from a saloon-keeper—and then, when the time came he always came to you scratching his head and saying that he had guessed too low, but that he had done his best—your guests had gotten so very drunk. By him you were sure to be cheated unmercifully, and that even though you thought yourself the dearest of the hundreds of friends he had. He would begin to serve your guests out of a keg that was half full, and finish with one that was half empty, and then you would be charged for two kegs of beer. ”

“ The saloon keeper has the ball of law in his hands. No matter whether a high or low license ball, he paid the price for the use of the ball. When temperance workers set up drunkards and they get a little money in their pockets away goes the ball and they are down again. When a church revival picks up a few drunkards the saloon keeper will say: "Here's a dollar to help in your meeting." ”

“ Still, people continue to file in: laborers, Portuguese sewing-women, two or three firemen in long-tailed coats and silver buttons, from Hook and Ladder Six, in the next block; gross-looking women, habitués of the Mission, with children; women who are habitués of no mission; prosperous saloon-keepers; one of the councilmen of the ward,—he is a saloon-keeper too. ”

“ He is on the ground-floor of the big tenement-house you live in, so that you must pass his door to get to your own. Or he is on the corner you must turn twenty times a day. If nearness were the only mark of a neighbor, the saloon-keeper is very neighborly indeed. ”

“ The happy man who does it service finds money, place, and power waiting him. The saloon keeper can defy the Sunday closing law with impunity, and the business man has his house assessed very moderately. ”

“ Every saloon keeper was a power in the community. Men, of any force of character whatever, who were willing to hold their hands behind their backs for Tammany graft, were singled out by the organization for some moiety of honour. Small merchants found it to their advantage to keep on the [160] right side of the saloon keepers and the Tammany leaders. I remember trying to express this thought in an uptown church to a wealthy congregation ”

“ I got out of the buggy slowly and carefully, so as not to shift the position of the revolver, and after hitching up the horse, entered the saloon. Coming out of the glare of the sunshine I could hardly see in the darkened room. In a moment or two my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, and I went over to the bar, which was on my left. The bar-keeper was sitting down; his head and shoulders alone were visible; I asked him for a lemon squash.
“Anythin’ in it?” he replied, without lifting his eyes.
“No; I’m thirsty and hot.” ”

“ Through the aid of several different city directories I secured the names of hundreds of saloon-keepers. As a class—outside of their own business, which I do not at all revere—they are a jolly, happy-go-lucky lot of people, who admire what has the appearance of a practical joke, are free with their money, and are on the best of terms with all the world and the rest of mankind. ”

“ Saloon-keepers are engaged in an enterprise which in itself is lawful; the same can be said of those who buy and sell poisons and dynamite and fire-arms. The nature of his merchandise differentiates his business from all other kinds of business, and his responsibilities are of the heaviest. It may, and often does, happen that this business is criminal ”

“ The [19] crew consists of 150 officers and men, commanded by Captain Webster, the senior Captain of the ‘Castle’ Company. Each of the dining saloons accommodates at one time the whole complement of passengers assigned to it,—a point of no small importance, as the trouble and worry of double meals are thereby avoided. The ship is admirably equipped in every particular, and the furnishings are of the most elegant character. The first-class dining saloon is a very handsome apartment, with panelled walls and dado, and is furnished throughout with refined taste. ”

“ We hope to float at 6.15 to-morrow morning, but to make sure of being able to get her off, we have been transferring some ballast to the dinghy, by way of lightening the yacht—a horrid business handling the pigs of lead, heavy, greasy, and black. The saloon is an inferno, the deck like a collier’s, and ourselves like sweeps. ”

“ The room was large, being capable of dining a hundred guests; and the windows were few, narrow, and half veiled by red cotton curtains. Though it was not yet night, some portions of this vast saloon were almost entirely dark. Two waiters brought the monster-punch, in an immense brass kettle, brilliant as gold, suspended from an iron bar, and crowned with flames of changing color. ”

“ Now, the saloon was the pride of the Skipper; and when the old man tried to bribe her out of it—he talked to her from the open skylight above—and she insulted him with her mouth, he sent for his men. From behind a shut door of the saloon alley way we heard a fusilade of tusks in the saloon, shrieks from the maddened dog, uproar from the parrots, and the hoarse shouts of the crew. The pig was charging ten ways at once. ”

“ The rumble of heavy market wagons and the rattle of milk carts told them that it was morning, and as they opened the door the cold fresh air swept into the place and made them wrap their collars around their throats and stamp their feet. The morning wind swept down the cross-street from the East River and the lights of the street lamps and of the saloon looked old and tawdry. ”

“ But one bright night one of the heavy showers which come and go so suddenly in the tropics, without a note of warning, came sweeping down and inundated the sleepers, who came clattering and chattering, wet through, down the saloon stairs at three o’clock in the morning, calling to the stewards for creature comforts and dry blankets and disturbing every one of the passengers who had managed to defy the stifling closeness of the state-rooms and get to sleep.
There were a number of young men in the second-class saloon who were going out to the diamond and gold fields to seek their fortunes. ”

“ The crew cook theirs over a sort of fireplace built right on deck, just aft of the foremast. After inspecting the saloon, which contains two sleeping-bunks, we decide to sleep on deck. The atmosphere of the saloon is hard to describe. It is hot and stuffy and a strong smell of bilge-water comes from beneath the floor. No, it isn’t possible to sleep there. Moh grins when we tell him to place our cots on deck.
We clear the mouth of the river and swing outward on a long tack, for the wind is coming dead against us. This will make the up-coast trip slow, but what care we? ”

“ My anticipations had doubtless taken their colour from recent experience of the trim, well-ordered smartness of the Ariadne's saloon. Here, on board the derelict, nothing was left standing which could easily be carried away. The cabins opening into the little saloon had no doors, save in the case of one--the captain's room--that had been split down the centre, apparently with an axe, and its remains hung drunkenly now upon one hinge, which, at a touch from Ted's hand, parted company with its bulkhead, leaving the door to fall clattering to the deck. ”

“ I said. "It is not more than half the size of the one the messenger laid on the counter in the saloon."
"It ought not to be more than half as large," added the colonel. "It appears that there has been some earnest talk among the passengers of the Islander. What could this have been about except the division of the spoils?"
While he was speaking, I had taken off the paper which inclosed the package. It was the same color as that I had seen in the saloon. On removing the covering, I came to the two tin plates, and saw a pile of money, in bills, between them. ”

“ Squads of the passengers, or, sometimes, a single fugitive came at intervals bursting into the saloon, gasping with the effects of surprise, and the effort at speed, laughing, flushed, agitated, recounting their narrow escapes from drenching or submergence. Two or three, indeed, had caught a ducking and were repairing to their staterooms for dry clothing. There was much sound of activity from the boiler deck as the roustabouts{102} ran boisterously in and out of the rain, busied in protecting freight or in sheltering the few head of stock. ”

“ The custom had fallen off in the saloon across the street to such extent that the proprietor was putting up the shutters. The saloon on the corner of the alley was still waiting for stray customers and I crossed over to it with the thought that the inmates might give me a possible clue. A man half-asleep leaned back in a chair by the stove with his chin on his breast. Two rough-looking men at a table who were talking in low tones pretended not to notice my entrance, but their furtive glances gave more eloquent evidence of their interest than the closest stare. ”

“ The accommodation provided for them are of the most elaborate description. No expense has been spared in the internal fittings of the ships. Everything that science and skill and refined taste could suggest has been brought into requisition. A more facile pen than ours describes the public rooms, as we call them, as follows, in terms by no means too appreciative: “The dining saloon is a vast, lofty apartment near the middle of the ship, one hundred feet long, sixty-two feet broad, and ten feet high, capable of seating at dinner 430 passengers in their revolving armchairs. ”

“ The town had shaken off the lethargy of its morning sleep: there were many men in the street, some riding back and forth, disdaining to walk the distance of a hundred yards from a saloon they had just left to the saloon to which they were going, some sitting their horses in the shade, lounging in the saddle as a man may lounge in an arm chair, some idled on foot at the swinging doors, while many others made a buzz of deep throated voices at the bars and over the gaming tables. ”

“ I said, turning to the Señorita, "permit me to escort you to the saloon. Doubtless you are ready for some supper after your long drive."
I was determined that my coolness should equal hers. Nothing was to be gained by acting the part of the stern gaoler. We accordingly passed along the deck to the saloon. The electric bell summoned the attentive chief steward, to whom I gave orders that a meal should be prepared for us immediately. ”

“ I saw lots of stylishly fitted-up stores along the avenue, and as there was so much style I thought there ought to be lots of money. Everyone I met was dressed to kill, and it seemed to me that no one was poor. Finally I came to a saloon which was bejeweled [Pg 132] and be-cut-glassed outside, and swell inside, having marble floors and fancy fixtures. Into this saloon I stepped and strode up to the bar, where I ordered a schooner of beer. I laid down a nickel on the bar and then leisurely strolled over to the lunch counter, which contained a pretty good spread of free lunch. ”

“ The saloon is the place in which ladies and gentlemen sit together. If a lady is so inconsiderate or selfish as to violate the rules of the boat, by inviting her husband or lover to take a seat in the ladies’ cabin, there is no impropriety in sending the chambermaid to remind him that he must leave the room. This is often done, and always should be. We once saw a gentleman (or a pretended one) so pertinacious in remaining, (it is true his lady-love urged him “not to mind,”) that the captain had to be brought to threaten him with forcible expulsion. ”

“ SPILKINGS, with his dead-eyes turned in, dashed breathlessly into the saloon. "By all that's holy," he shouted, "the Captain's gone mad, and the crew have thrown off all disguise. We are manned by ourang-outangs!"
CHAPTER IV.
Never shall I forget the horrors of the scene that ensued. We clewed up the mizzen royal, we lashed the foretop to make it spin upon its heels. The second dog watch barked his shins to the bone, and a tail of men hauled upon the halliards to mast-head the yard. Nothing availed. ”