Taproom

“ Washington Tavern, Westfield, Massachusetts.
The taproom was usually the largest room of the tavern. It had universally a great fireplace, a bare, sanded floor, and ample seats and chairs. Usually there was a tall, rather rude writing-desk, at which a traveller might write a letter, or sign a contract, and where the landlord made out his bills and kept his books. ”

“ THE man who was unafraid would take a new semblance to your critical eyes, and you would stare at him as he stood there in the half-lighted taproom giving instructions to the stable boy and watching the landlord dip the hot poker into the steaming ale. ”

“ He led us to a little parlour back of the taproom. Here a door opened into the tap itself, and in this door was cut a large square window so that the good man of the inn could sometimes sit at his ease in his great chair in the snug parlour and observe that his customers had only that for which they were paying. It is a very good plan, for I have seen many a worthy man become a rogue merely because nobody was watching him. ”

“ Service is held once a week but the attendance is thin; there is a taproom which is crowded all day long: here men sit over their cups from morning till evening; there is a coffee-room where tea and coffee can be procured and where the newspapers are read ”

“ One old fellow in Newburyport opened it wide, gazed at it with interest, and cried out to his neighbor in much excitement: "Bad news! Terrible gales, terrible gales, ships all bottom side up," as indeed they were in his way of holding the news sheet. The extent and purposes to which the tavern sheet might be applied can be guessed from the notice written over the mantel-shelf in the taproom: "Gentlemen learning to spell are requested to use last week's news-letter." ”

“ Folk who are in haste can be served at the bar, but most of the customers of the "Blue Anchor" are strangers to haste, and take their liquor seated in the tap-room--or tap, as it is familiarly and affectionately called by those who are familiar with the place. It is about twelve feet square, with a large deal table in the middle, and a bench on each side of the table. At the upper end is a hearth, on which smoulders a good peat fire, the smoke from which goes up a large flue that comes down to within five feet of the floor like a huge funnel. ”

“ On the outside of the tavern, whither we betake ourselves to wash, are a tub of water, a basin and a towel, for all the guests; but as only one person can perform his ablutions at a time, it will be necessary for us to form ourselves in a line, and take our turn—the first comers being entitled to the front places. We are now ready to replenish the inner man. The bar is convenient for those who wish to imbibe. Breakfast is announced. We seat ourselves at the table. Before us is a reasonable quantity of beans, pork and flapjacks, served up in tin plates. ”

“ Bishop Earle, whose Microcosmography is accounted a faithful delineation of characters as they existed in the seventeenth century, has bequeathed the following account of a tavern of his date:—‘A tavern is a degree, or (if you will) a pair of stairs above an ale-house, where men are drunk with more credit and apology. If the vintner’s nose be at the door, it is a sign sufficient, but the absence of this is supplied by the ivy-bush. It is a broacher of more news than hogsheads, and more jests than news, which are sucked up here by some spongy brain, and from thence squeezed into a comedy. ”

“ The burly butcher, seated outside the inn with no fear of the Sheriff in his heart, quaffs his pewter mug of foaming ale, and casts now and again an eye on the artist who is repainting the signboard. The sturdy smith, the drayman, the porter and the fishwife—all are well clad and prosperous. Houses are being built, others are being repaired, and health and wealth are visible on every side.
Beer! happy produce of our isle, Can sinewy strength impart, And wearied with fatigue and toil, Can cheer each manly heart. ”

“ The waiters, in black swallow-tails and white aprons, passing here and there with trays of bottles and glasses.
The quiet and sumptuous bar-room, with purplish men softly drinking in little alcoves, while the barkeeper, mixing bright liquors, is rapidly plying his bottles. ”

“ We were out in the open. Roofs and smoking chimneys were silhouetted on the sky, and, halfway up a hill, we could see the candle-lights of the red tavern. There, in the bar, before blazing logs in a great fireplace, for the evening had come chilly, a table was laid for us, and we sat down with hearty happiness to tankards of old ale and a smoking haunch. ”

“ A tavern-keeper brought in some wine glasses stinking of whiskey, to which a cloth seemed never to have been applied; out of a pitcher of water he poured some into a glass, just shook it, and then throwing the water into the waiter upon which the wine stood, walked away satisfied with this proof of his cleanliness: and a female the other evening, in order to brush away the flies while we were at supper, flourished over our heads her dirty pocket handkerchief, in the absence of the brush of feathers fixed upon a long stick, which is generally waved over the dishes during the repast. ”

“ Once inside the tavern every man, woman, and child plies you with questions. To get a dinner is the work of hours. At night you are put into a room with a dozen others and sleep two or three in a bed. In the morning you go outside to wash your face and then repair to the barroom to see your face in the only looking glass the tavern contains." Another traveler complains that at the best hotel in New York there was neither glass, mug, cup, nor carpet, and but one miserable rag dignified by the name of towel. ”

“ But just then, one of the king’s guard smelled out that the lad who had owned the scissors and the table-cloth had a tap besides, which, if one only turned it a little, gave out the rarest drink, both ale, and mead, and wine. So when he came back to the palace, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut this time any more than before; he went about telling high and low about the tap, and how easy it was to draw all sorts of drink out of it.
“And as for that mead and ale, I’ve never tasted the like of them in the king’s palace; honey and syrup are nothing to them for sweetness.” ”

“ Mrs Widger had cricked her back, or had caught cold in it standing at the back door with the steaming wash-tub in front of her and a northerly wind behind. We wanted some supper beer....
I felt more than a little shy on entering the jug and bottle department with a jug. It is such a secret place. To face a bar full of people and plump a jug down on the counter, is one thing; but it is quite another to slink up the stairs and into the wooden box—about seven feet high and four by four—that does duty for the jug and bottle department, and the privy tippling place, of the Alexandra Hotel. ”

“ The scene is a tavern interior. Around the table are four men and a woman, while a boy approaches carrying two huge measures of ale. One man is smoking furiously, while on the table lie three other pipes—one for each man—and sundry pots and glasses. The woman is plainly a convivial soul; but there is no pipe for her, and such provision was no doubt unusual. ”

“ One crosses the threshold of this homely tavern, and in the twinkling of an eye is admitted to an intimacy with the rude comfort of the past. Brisk waiters were pouring sparkling ale into tankards, and placing before customers plates containing helpings generous enough to satisfy the appetite of a starving man. In the box in the corner, curtained off by a faded crimson frill from the rest of the room, were two vacant places, which Mrs. D. and I took, and from my seat there I could watch the gentleman in the morning coat who serves The Pudding. ”

“ As usual, every one you look at puts out the hand to beg. The tavern where we stopped to dine seemed more like a great barn, or cavern, than any thing else. We go groping along perfectly dark stone passages, stumbling up a stone staircase, and gaining light only when the door of a kind of reception room opens upon us—a long, rough-looking room, without any carpet, furnished with a table, and some chairs, and a rude sofa. ”

“ You can on wi' your slippers, up wi' your legs, talk, or go for'ard, counting, twicing, and three-timesing; by George! I should take to drinking beer if I had my afternoons to myself in the city, just for the sake of sitting and doing sums in a tap-room; if it's a big tap-room, with pew sort o' places, and dark red curtains, a fire, and a smell of sawdust; ale, and tobacco, and a boy going by outside whistling a tune of the day. ”

“ When one had to meet a friend, a tavern was an expensive place; "in an ale-house you must gorge yourself with pot after pot, sit dully alone, or be drawn in to club for others' reckonings." Not so at the coffee-house: "Here, for a penny or two, you may spend two or three hours, have the shelter of a house, the warmth of a fire, the diversion of company ”

“ As we rambled along the streets in search of refreshment, the welcome voice of a tapster, shouting to passengers in the old fashion, drew us towards a tavern or hostelry.
'Messieurs,' he continued to cry, 'we have here good wine and good oats! will you have a chopin for yourself and a measure for your charger? enter, messieurs, enter!'
This tavern was styled the Count of Champagne, from its sign-board, which bore an imaginary head of that personage in a barbed helmet of the middle ages ”

“ Here is nothing drunk but ale, and every gentleman hath his separate Mug, which he chalks on the table where he sits as it is brought in; and everyone retires when he pleases as from a Coffee House. The Room is always so diverted with songs, and drinking from one table to another to one another’s healths, that there is no room for Politicks, or anything that can sow’r conversation. ”

“ The moment you sit down a waiter with the inevitable teapot is at your elbow, depositing on the table before you a cup containing one grimy thumb. The tea and watermelon seeds are, as they say in the Moulin Rouge, “obligatoire”, but you are free to refuse threescore flies resting on a bar of candy, eggs of uncertain age whose whites have become black, or apples just the proper softness with which to pelt [177] actors. At the tables all around you men are audibly sipping tea or eating dishes of steaming viands, after which they wipe face and hands on hot towels which the waiters are passing. ”

“ And though the taverns are very numerous, yet ale-houses are much more so, being visited by the inferior tradesmen, mechanics, journeymen, porters, coachmen, carmen, servants, and others whose pockets will not reach a glass of wine. Here they sit promiscuously in common dirty rooms, with large fires, and clouds of tobacco, where one that is not used to them can scarce breathe or see; but as they are a busy sort of people, they seldom stay long, returning to their several employments, and are succeeded by fresh sets of the same rank of men, at their leisure hours, all day long. ”

“ A glittering restaurant drew him in presently, and here he had a jovial dinner; all alone, it is true, but with plenty to look at.
He had also a half-bottle of champagne and a maraschino.
He had already consumed that day a cocktail coloured, two glasses of brandy-and-water cold and a half-bottle of champagne. His ordinary consumption of alcohol was moderate. A glass of green-seal sherry at twelve, and a half-bottle of St. Estéphe at lunch, and, shall we say, a small whisky-and-soda at dinner, or, if dining out or with guests, a couple of glasses of Pommery. ”

“ The tavern, it must be remembered, as a convivial resort, is the social antipodes of the back room of Squire Edwards' “store.” If you would consort with silk-stockinged, wigged, and silver shoe-buckled gentlemen, you must just step over there, for at the tavern are only to be found the hewers of wood and drawers of water, mechanics, farm-laborers, and farmers. ”

“ Many old wagoners were fond of fun and frolic, but very few of them were intemperate, although they had the readiest opportunities for unrestrained drinking. Every old tavern had its odd shaped little bar, ornamented in many instances with fancy lattice work, and well stocked with whiskey of the purest distillation, almost as cheap as water. In fact all kinds of liquors were kept at the old taverns of the National Road, except the impure stuff of the present day. ”

“ A Tavern Interior.—There are two tavern interiors here. In one (dated 1661) five peasants are grouped in the foreground. Before a large chimney stands a man in a blue vest and gray hat, holding a mug in his hand; opposite is a man in a blue mantle and a white hat, who is filling his pipe; in the chimney corner an old man is dreaming; and to his right an old woman is listening to what a man in a furred cap, with a pipe in his hand, is saying to the man before the fire. ”

“ 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. ”