A DOMESTIC SUGGESTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:') appears to me that there is one feasible though at present untried plan for remedying the domestic miseries complained of by the lady correspondent in your last number. Her experience seems to show clearly that it is not the work, but the loss of caste involved in domestic service which makes it so unpopular. Could not this be remedied? Suppose that some excellent maiden lady, desirous to improve the condition of her sex, were to advertise to
necessitous young ladies that instead of cook and housemaid, she needs the services of two " companions," who will agree to per- ferm the necessary domestic work, on condition that they shall pot. lose caste, shall share in the lady's own occupations and sit with her in the evening, and shall be chaperoned by her to any accessible amusements not interfering with their work, as a kind- hearted and sensible person would naturally wish to be the case with what is technically called a " companion." The roughest work might be deputed to a charwoman, and the ordinary house- work and cooking might be much. lightened by judicipus arrange- ment, aa in the charming American tale of "We Girls." I cannot but believe that such a situation would be eagerly grasped at by hundreds of those girls of gentle birth who are not well educated, and have no aptitude for teaching or for nursing, and yet are .obliged to earn their awn living in any way they can. The mis- tress would have to sacrifice her solitary state, but she would gain in recompenSe the pleasure of the society of young people not necessarily below herself in birth or in refinement. This condition .of things was constantly the case in, former generations, as Miss Tytler shows up in her pretty story of the "Diamond Rose," and I believe that in Germany at the present day a "
jtingfer " is frequently the daughter of a clergyman, and holds a post such as I have described. Would, not this experiment, if tried in a few quiet and happy homes, quickly raise the appreeia- lion of domestic usefulness to its true place.among the women of
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