The Pub and the People

The little man in the damp overcoat was mildly drunk. He scraped his feet over the sawdust, scratched his rump, downed the last of his "mild and bitter."

"Suppose," said he, "that Jesus Christ came back and was going to feed the multitude with five loaves and two small fishes. What would happen?"

No one in the "White Bear" answered. The little man tightened the dark scarf around his neck, tugged the broken beak of his cap over his eyes and went out into the rain. With him floated the ropey smell of cheap twist and stale beer. Snatches of conversation flickered around the low-ceilinged room:

"This bleeding newspaper says another 300,000 Germans killed on the Russian front. I've counted up all the Germans killed in Russia and I reckon there's only two of them left. Love a duck, what do they think we are. . . ?"

"Aye, a fine bust she has. I like a woman with a fine bust. . . ."

Two oldsters in a corner continued their silent game of dominoes.

To teetotalers, and to some other gloomy characters, the British pub is a sink of iniquity, the repository of much that is ingrown, insular and debilitating in British life. For sober students of drinking and human nature, it is the haven and repository of much that is good and warm ing in British life, an important and perhaps the most democratic institution in Britain.

Pub Study. There is no "typical" British pub, but the pub is typical of Britain. The socially snobbish do not frequent pubs. The rich drink at home or in their clubs. But not the little people -- the ones who angrily withstand blitzes, who keep the mills running, the crops harvested, the ships sailing, Britain going.

A study of the pub and of its place in the life of Britain was recently published in London. The Pub and the People was the work of an organization called Mass-Observation, which for three years scrutinized the Lancashire cotton-mill town of Bolton. Sample observation: A man aged 66 wrote: "Why I drink Beer, because it is food, drink, and medicine to me, my Bowels work regular as clockwork, and I think that is the Key to health, also lightening affects me a lot, I get such a thirst from Lightening, and full of Pins and Needles, if I drink from the tap it's worse, Beer makes me better the more I drink better I feel, neither does it make me drunk, when a Boy a horn of Beer before Breakfast was the foundation for the day." Of such plums, and many a pebbly fact and figure, Mass-Observation's report on Bolton's pubs is compact.

Pub Talk. In Bolton "the pub has more buildings, holds more people, takes more of their time and money than church, cinema, dance hall and political organizations put together." Of the city's 180,000 population, about 27,000 (15%) frequented 300 pubs with a round score of 20,000 steady drinkers averaging three pints a day. Of these "regulars," 90% were from 25 to 55 years old.

They chose their favorite pubs for many reasons: their cronies went there; the landlord set up drinks at decent intervals and put drinks "on the slate"; the beer was well kept; the barmaid was pretty; the "bookie's runner" had hot tips on the races. Sport (before the war) was far & away the favorite topic of conversation, but on typical evenings pubsters discussed: the indestructibility of matter, the power of dictators, the privileges of the land-owning classes, the economics of market gardening, a bitch dog which had lost three pups, Hitler, Tommy Farr and the Archbishop of York. " . .

Pub Mores. In their pubs, Britons can play darts, quoits, cards, dominoes, skittles, shove ha'penny. They like to listen to pub pianists playing the sadder variety of Irish songs. Prostitutes frequented a few Bolton pubs. Others were headquarters for the Royal and Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, for pigeon fanciers, anglers, mutual benefit societies.

The names of Bolton's pubs fall into four categories: trades (The Bricklayers Arms); animals (The White Ox); history and local tradition (The Duke of Bridgewater) ; neighborhoods (The Gas Works Tavern). Most pubs have several bars, each with a slight but perceptible social distinction from the others. Most select is the lounge, usually off a hotel's foyer, which the local squire and his guests occasionally affect. Next is the saloon bar, usually frequented by black-coated workers and the more sporty of the upper classes. For the workman smartened up in his Saturday suit and taking the old girl out for a fling, there is the private bar. (Women are allowed in all bars. Exception: some bars in Scotland.) For democrats of any & all classes there is the vault, also known as the taproom and the public bar. Here the talk and furnishings are rougher, the beer a penny cheaper.

Lights Out. Mass-Observation's report, concentrated on a single northern industrial town, has a bleak and sordid tinge. But many of its findings apply to pubs throughout Britain. Per-capita beer consumption had dropped from 36 gallons per head in the lusty year of 1722 to 17.58 gallons in puny 1936. The beer's quality and potency have deteriorated notably in the last few years. The cheapest brand of beer costs tenpence or elevenpence, of which eightpence or ninepence may go to taxation. An old Sussex yokel remembered the good old (pre-1914) days: "If you wanted a quiet, sociable evening with the missus it'd be fourpence for bread, cheese and pickles for the pair of us, tuppence for half an ounce of 'baccy, with still sixpence for a pint of ale for yourself and one for the wife left out of the same shilling." Temperance agitation has cut down the number of pubs; so has a 1910 law which forbids holders of brewery shares to serve as magistrates (who give out pub licenses). Early closing hours have cut down business. Many an old, established pub has gone under; the number of new ones is decreasing. Brewers often buy up pubs, close them or install their own operators, their own beer.

Parliament of Man. If an Englishman's home is his castle, his pub is his parliament. Here his right to drink, talk or sing is every man's right. In the pub he meets not only conservatives, liberals, laborites and communists but people who disagree with one or all of them. He meets not only all brands of religious conviction but also agnostics. He meets representatives of big business, of small business and of no business. He meets farmers and farm laborers; writers, artists, intellectuals, travelers, workmen, burglars and criminals; ladies, semi-ladies and no-ladies; Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, Welshmen and, nowadays, soldiers from every part of the Allied globe. He meets everyman and everywoman.

Here, once a man has bought or been bought a glass of beer, he is his neighbor's equal. Here he may damn the Government, quote Shakespeare, gamble on the horses or argue atheism. Here the only restrictions are certain forms of social courtesy, built by common consent over hundreds of years, whose effect is to secure the maximum liberty of speech and action without interfering with the convenience and pleasure of the majority. Within these limits a man may talk and behave as he pleases.

"And," says a passionate defender of the pub, "if this isn't democracy and what we are supposed to be fighting for, what in hell is it?"

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