No disgrace or shame attaches to it, nor
to the young woman or girl who makes a practice of entering it.
I remember a girl in a coffee-house saying, "I never drink spirits when
in a public-'ouse." She was a young and pretty waitress, and she was
laying down to another waitress her pre-eminent respectability and
discretion. Mrs. Grundy drew the line at spirits, but allowed that it
was quite proper for a clean young girl to drink beer, and to go into a
public-house to drink it.
Not only is this beer unfit for the people to drink, but too often the
men and women are unfit to drink it. On the other hand, it is their very
unfitness that drives them to drink it. Ill-fed, suffering from
innutrition and the evil effects of overcrowding and squalor, their
constitutions develop a morbid craving for the drink, just as the sickly
stomach of the overstrung Manchester factory operative hankers after
excessive quantities of pickles and similar weird foods. Unhealthy
working and living engenders unhealthy appetites and desires. Man cannot
be worked worse than a horse is worked, and be housed and fed as a pig is
housed and fed, and at the same time have clean and wholesome ideals and
aspirations.
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