23 AUGUST 1890, Page 18

THE RIGHTS OF SERVANTS.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—May I inform your correspondent that for years it has been my habit before finally engaging a servant, to say : "Now go into the village, make all the inquiries you like about this household, for it is as absolutely needful for you to know about the place you enter as it is for me to have a personal character of the servant I engage "? This, I find, answers admirably. Mistress and maid (and man also) start understanding each other, and on common ground.—I am, Sir, &c., A. G. D.