DOMESTIC SERVICE.
[To THE ED/TOR OF THE" SPECTATOR.")
&n,—Naturally, the letters in your last numbers have deeply interested me, for many years of experience both as a mistress and a country parson's wife have only strengthened my opinion that the two chief drawbacks to domestic service felt by the wage-earners are: (1) Loss of social status, and this I can prove by known instances. (2) Lack of liberty. The letter of the "Satisfied Mistress," though most encouraging to those whose means and house accommodation make it possible, gives no help to the more numerous mistresses who are limited in both those matters. I think and have practised for long that we might meet the times we live in by, first, always calling our maids "Miss" and their surname—this may seem absurd to us, but it is not Bo to them, and "makes all the difference "—and, second, allowing freedom to " run to post or to the shop" without permis- sion asked, which is humiliating to a respectable girl, if the proviso is made that duties are provided for. I have found that this privilege has never been abused—it is of course in addition to regular free times. It behoves the more sensible up-to-date mis- tresses to try to find a remedy for the loss of the better class who used to enter service, and have long wished that there was a Mistresses' Union, the members of which should pledge themselves to snore enlightened methods of domestic employment. —I am, Sir,
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