An obliging barmaid drawing beer. Coloured lithograph, ca. 1833.

The print shows a barmaid operating a "beer-engine" for pumping the beer from the keg to the bar. This device was one of many invented by Joseph Bramah (1749-1814), who is better known for the Bramah lock. He designed a hydraulic pump that could retrieve a given quantity of beer (pint or half-pint) from a keg, and he patented the invention in 1795-1797. Previously it had been necessary for the bar staff to go down to the cellar and carry up a jug of beer. In the present print by Tregear, the "obliging bar-maid" asks "Do you like it mild, sir?", a double entendre of a kind which became less common in the early years of Queen Victoria that were soon to follow. The tight corsetry continued to be fashionable, even to the extent of damaging health