23
MANAGEMENT, ATTENDANCE, AND SUPERVISION.
Each Coffee Publichouse is to be placed under the charge of a competent manager, who should reside on the premises. It is desirable that he should be a married man, with a wife able to assist him in his duties. The manager and his assistants should all be total abstainers. Great care, it is scarcely necessary to say, should be exercised in the selection of the manager. He should be a man of sterling integrity, whose heart is in his work, vigorous and active, with good temper and pleasant cheery manners. Very much depends on the manager and attendants in regard to rendering a house attractive or otherwise. It is a mistake to suppose that rough manners on the part of managers and attendants are suited to rough guests. On the contrary, gentleness and courtesy will always be appreciated and responded to, all the more perhaps because the guests may have been unaccustomed to such civil treatment at their old haunts.
The manager should be a man of business habits; and it would be of great advantage to him if before entering upon his duties he were to be placed for a few weeks under the manager of an established Coffee Publichouse, so as to gain an insight into the work. An arrangement of this kind may usually be made, if necessary, through the Committee of the Coffee Publichouse Association. The manager's pay should not depend on the business done; still less should the business be turned over to him to make what he can on payment of a fixed sum as rent. If this is done he is placed under a strong temptation to sell articles of an inferior quality in order to realise, as he may suppose, greater profits: as has, in fact, happened, with the result of complete failure. Payment of an adequate fixed salary is therefore recommended, and if it be thought advisable to give the manager a direct pecuniary interest in the success of the undertaking—as in some cases it is—this may be done by allowing him in addition a small commission upon the proceeds.
