The main reason for the difference in tone between the American saloon and the English public-house is that the latter is hallowed by the familiar presence of women. In England the male bartender is practically unknown, and drinks are served almost universally by bar-maids. It is part of the inalienable birthright of women that they can always set the social tone of any business that they engage in, and without effort can compel the men with whom they come in contact to ascend or to descend to meet them on the level they have set. In New York, for instance, the same man who is flippant with the manicure-lady is respectful to the woman usher in the opera-house: instinctively, and without conscious consideration, he meets any business-woman in the mood that she expects of him. To the women and not to the men is it granted to control the tone of any association between the sexes: bad women can debase a business, good women can uplift it, whereas the men with whom they are engaged would of themselves be powerless to lower or to elevate its tone. The way in which stenographers and shop-girls are treated depends on the stenographers and shop-girls much more than on the men with whom their occupation throws them. This, as everybody knows, is a law of human nature. 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.
Of English bars and bar-maids I think that I may speak with a certain authority. In the course of four visits to England during the last decade, I have traveled over nearly all the country; I have slept in every county in England except two, and wandered from town to town with an insatiable interest; and since I care more about people than about any other feature of the panoramic world, I have rarely in my rambles let slip an opportunity to pass an evening in a public-house and listen to the chat. To attempt a similar experience in America would be to discard it with disgust after three or four wasted evenings; but in the bars of England there is nearly always someone who is worthy to repay the task of seeking.