SPLENDOURS AND MISERIES OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES
II.—THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTIC SERVICE.
BY GERTRUDE KINGSTON.
If ever the Middle Classes are extinguished England—according to a familiar saying—will have lost her backbone. The piling of one new burden after another on the Middle Classes is a serious matter, then, not only for them but for the nation. No nation could afford to lose classes which are compelled by tradition and necessity to do hard brain work, observe standards of conduct and. appearance and keep their mouths shut. Of course there is a continual interchange of classes as there always has been ; some members of the Middle Classes are going up, others are going down. Yet when all allowance has been made for the inevita- bility of the sufferings of those who are adapting themselves to a lower state, the distresses of the Middle Classes are numerous, undeserved, and very real. Miss Gertrude Kingston has written for us a series of lively articles on this subject. The Middle Classes have got in her a champion who is not afraid to speak out. We both agree and disagree with Miss Gertrude Kingston, but we would rather have the opinions and the suggested remedies of our readers than describe our own. No doubt there are remedies. —ED. Spectator.
"They also serve who only stand and wait."
MORE horrible murders of which minute details and photographs of victims and locality are supplied by a daily Press " in the interests of Justice." No servants in the smaller and humbler homes ; but in the public parks, dark alleys, lonely cottages are to be found assassins' dupes decoyed by their own temperaments, from among the girls who before the War were safely housed in the privacy of domestic service. And these girls who wanted their freedom find it—in death.
Because domestic service, with its early to bed and early to rise, without responsibilities or anxieties on the question of food, warmth, clean living, has been • voted " slavery," better by far earn a precarious living with long daily journeys costing fares and shoe leather and a scanty meal of something inexpensive but expansive just for the honour of describing oneself as a clerk after a course of lessons in typing and stenography I The trouble is that this parrot-cry of " slavery " infects the girl who might otherwise be sensible enough to prefei the safer asylum of ho-usehold service and makes hex rather envious of her more adventurous free-lance con- temporaries ; envious and a little disgruntled—except on the day when wages are paid and she can keep her earnings for herself instead of having to bestow them on a landlady for small comfort received or on an A.B.C. shop, or until it is brought home to her by the revelation of some ghastly crime how unfitted arc these young women by education or environment for the independence to which they aspire.
From time to time an artificial crusade is launched by "women ambitious for local or social leadership on the terrors of had situations with tyrant mistresses, on the Solitude of the maid-of-all-work, on the insufficient food, and so on through the whole gamut of " sob-stuff " that appeals to the gallery. In justice to the Socialist women, be it said, they have mostly spoken on the dignity of service. No ; the snobbery of crying down domestic service is often on the part of persons who desire to pose 'as " the perfect mistress " and whowill not admit to there being any domestic quandary in their own homes. But employment bureaux will testify that there are malevolent servants as well as malevolent employers, that there arc hundreds of maids who from a fear of their own fellow- servants prefer to " go single-handed," and as to in- sufficient food, a cook once confided to me (as a com- pliment I believe) that where inquiries as to the joint of Yesterday were tco searching, the remains of it found the way into the coalscuttle before the morning inspection. Again, the servants' employment agencies can bring evidence that there is as much restlessness among the younger members of a big staff as in the smaller house- holds ; but in a staff of two the defection of one servant must naturally cause more confusion than where the gap can be bridged over by many others.
Now let us get to the root of all this hatred of domestic discipline. The modern servant who, by the way, speaks excellent English, is much less addicted to " answering back " than her more illiterate predecessor. She is fearless and therefore generally truthful ; and she is honest, so honest, indeed, that a pilferer is easily dis- coverable. Still; with these qualities she is so totally devoid of affection or attachment to her employer that if she stays in her situation it is not from any liking for her " lady " but because it suits her to stay. On the day on which she feels what she calls " fed up " she will, unwavering, take herself off to another place with different coloured chintzes and a different view from the window and never return, from curiosity or interest, to visit her previous employer.
It matters not on what floor of the social structure you meet the girl of the moment, she is unhesitating in her self-absorption, for her physical and moral attributes are the same. Whether you are introducing a dancing partner to a debutante of an aristocratic house, or whether you are handing to your maid the orders for the day, both receive you with the blank expression of stony indifference. It is a silent protest against the self- sacrifices of the two previous generations of women. " Don't imagine you count in our lives. We arc able to get what we mean to have " is the silent message of that unblinking glance. And in the main they are right, if laughter and joyousness had not departed from them and left only passion undisguised and unashamed..
The boys of the moment having grown up with girls as -playmates have become familiarized with feminine society and are noticeably less sex-conscious and more normal than their fathers. In the girls, however, this newly-made companionship with men has evolved a -libertinism in strange contrast to their mirthless attitude -towards life.
War work had a great deal to do with this. When con- scription was introduced, all labour should have been con- seripted and every man and woman put to the task he or she was fitted to do. As it was, the young lady arrived in hospital and hostel to scrub and clean for which she was 'useless, and the maid-servant sought a life of adventure in factories and camps. Both frequently broke down, neither being suited to the strain of the " job " she had undertaken.
The War ceased but the craving for excitement went on. Among the women of education the unrest reveals . itself in discontent and unedifying law-suits. Among servants the antipathy to domestic service dates from that time ; and the repugnance to regular work has not been lessened by the " dole," which practically guarantees a living wage to anyone who cannot or will not find a situation that meets her requirements.
If when there are household posts vacant for which young women have not the requisite training then by all means pay the dole for the months of their apprenticeship, but after that "service or nothing." The shortage would thus soon be replenished. The Labour Bureaux will tell you frankly that none of their applicants for work are possible as domestic servants. But surely if the schools were notified and lists were sent to them of the number of local situations waiting for cooks, housemaids, children's nurses, dressmakers, sempstresses, &c., it would be no difficult matter to train those girls who had a natural bent for one of those callings ? A child's inclinations are quite early definable by the games of make-believe it plays. Thus in five years we might have a race of com- petent, contented servants, for it is useless to deny that employers have a far greater realization to-day of what they owe to their dependents than in the Victorian era.
Under the present famine of servitors, a well-to-do mistress will ruthlessly bribe by money and privileges any raw girl in order to get the full complement of staff she deems necessary for her state or status, and wages are therefore paid to a type of worker that before the War were paid only to an experienced and valuable person.
With the modest margin left to the middle classes after overhead charges have been met, personal service has become an impossibility without the sacrifice of other necessaries. What woman who earns her own living and has the man's work to do without doors and the woman's work within doors does not know the terrible fatigue of waiting on herself after the heat and burden of the day, a fatigue that limits her potentialities of output and wastes her energies in non-essentials ?
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