Page:The Coffee Publichouse.djvu/13



does the working man spend his wages at the publichouse? Why does he not stay at home with his wife and family?

Even if his home be cheerful and pleasant—and in London or other towns it is often very much the reverse—he cannot be always there. His home may be one small room, in which he can scarcely stretch his legs in comfort, and where all the domestic operations must be carried on. Reading soon tires him, if he knows how to read at all, and in his home he probably has no other resource. After a chat with his wife and a game with the children, he seeks the society of his 'mates.' They have something to talk about that he can understand, and that interests him. Where are they to be found? At the publichouse.

The drink is an attraction no doubt; it becomes, unfortunately, more and more attractive; but it is not, at the outset, the chief attraction.

Give the working man a publichouse where he may meet his friends, and talk and smoke, and play games with all the freedom to which he has been accustomed, and where good coffee and tea—with stimulus and nourishment in them—take the place of beer and gin, and you set before him for the first time, plainly, the choice between sobriety and comfort on the one hand, and dissipation and wretchedness on the other.

The case of the women frequenters of publichouses is