LADIES IN SERVICE.
ANOTHER attempt to induce mistresses to engage lady- helps is to be made by a Society calling itself " The Household Auxiliary Association." According to an account of this body, published in the Daily News of Monday, the ladies who go into service under its auspices, are not to be asked to take their meals or share a sleeping-room with the servants, nor are they to be expected to undertake rough work, such as scrubbing, blacking boots, or carrying heavy weights upstairs. No doubt these conditions were declared to be essential by the ladies seeking situations, but we cannot but believe that they will wreck the whole scheme. Except in the case of a housekeeper, it is quite impossible in an ordi- nary household to segregate one or two servants from the others. In a great household, where there is a steward's room, and where there is a compact body of upper servants all with high wages, it might be possible to arrange that the lady-helps should neither scrub nor have their meals with those who scrub ; but in an ordinary family, where the servants number between four and nine, it is essential that there should be no essential distinction between the servants employed to do the work of the house. We all know how difficult a position is that of governess, and still more of nursery-governess. She is an object of jealousy to all the other servants, and they are careful to inflict every possible humiliation upon her, with the object of showing that " she has to earn her bread like the rest of us." To repeat this situation in the kitchen, the nursery, and the pantry, would be to reduce a household to anarchy. If ladies are to go into ordinary household service, to be anything else, that is, but governesses, housekeepers, or companions, they must be willing to place themselves on a level with the rest of the servants in the house. That is a conviction which will be forced upon all who take the trouble to study the question.
That this should be so, is to us a subject of no ordinary regret. We are convinced that there are thousands of well- bred and well-educated and refined women, young and middle- aged, who would be far healthier and happier as nurses, cooks, housemaids, and lady's-maids, than they are as clerks in shops, or as workers on the telephone or the telegraph, or as occupants of those dreary and ill-paid posts which are recommended as suitable for gentlewomen of reduced circumstances. Unfortu- nately, however, the ladies do not think so. They are not afraid of hard work ; they have quite got over the notion that working with their hands is degrading ; but they cannot and will not face associating day by day with those who belong to a lower social caste than themselves. The notion of eating with and living the life of persons who do not obey a refined standard of manners is so repugnant to them, that they will do anything rather than take their meals in the servants' hall. The reply that is usually made to these objections is not, we think, quite fair. It is asserted, and with truth, that men of cultivation and refinement in the West and in Australia live with the roughest of frontiersmen on perfect terms of equality, and yet do not find the situation intolerable. Again, men who have enlisted to get a commission, by the exercise of a little prudence and good sense have managed to make life in barracks by no means intolerable. Why, then, it is asked, should not a sensible woman contrive to endure the servants' hall without complaint ? There is no lack of physical comfort or cleanliness there, at any rate. The answer is not far to seek,—women feel minute differences in manner which men do not, and are " upset " and made acutely wretched by things which a man never notices at all. Again, women find it much more difficult not to claim social superiority than men do. The sense of camaraderie is with most of them very little developed, and thus the lady- help would find it almost impossible to establish a community of sentiment with her sisters of the servants' hall. Even when least meaning to be supercilious, she would be giving little indications of how wide was the gulf between a lady and a person below her. This sort of claim would have little effect among a body of men, for they would not care enough about it to bother with it. A man who claims social superiority at a mining camp is looked on with amusement, and is regarded as a particularly absurd form of " crank." The fellow-servants of the lady-help would, however, recognise the social superiority only too well. They would acknowledge it by their jealousy, and would punish the lady-help, not for professing to be some- thing better than themselves when she was really no better than they, but for possessing a refinement which they did not possess. Another reason for regretting that there is very little likelihood of the servant question, or of the starving gentle- women question, being solved by means of lady-helps, is our belief that lady-helps would make very good servants indeed. Unquestionably, people of education and cultivation are far more easy to manage than those who do not possess those advantages. A regiment of men who have been through a University, as the Germans know, are far more subordinate and amenable to discipline than a body of peasants and artisans. Cultivation of mind makes people reasonable and willing to abide by the bargains they have made. One of the great difficulties with servants is their lack of self-control, and their liability to " go off at half-cock," as Mr. Gladstone once said of a Cabinet whose members were always resigning because of some temporary friction. A servant is annoyed because a mistress insists upon some particular thing being done which the servant thinks foolish or unfitting. Thereupon the servant, in a fit of temper, gives warning, and takes herself oft, because " she ain't a-going to put up with such nonsense." An educated person, though annoyed, would argue : Why should I bother ? After all, it's not my house, but Mrs. Jones's ; and if she likes to have things done in a particular way, that's her affair. As long as she does not ask me to do more than I agreed to do, I shall do what she says.' No one ever hears of the clerks employed by a great commercial firm giving warning because " the partners" have issued a particular order. In a household, however, a servant entirely repudiates the idea of obeying as obedience is understood in an office. Now, with lady-helps the "I'm not going to be ordered about by nobody," or " If you think I don't know how the work ought to be done, you'd better get some one as does," attitude would be far less likely to be adopted. The educated mind sees at once the folly and futility of such a way of looking upon a contract of service. Hence we cannot doubt that, could the difficulties we have enumerated be surmounted, lady-helps would be helps indeed.
There is one way in which they could be partially sur- mounted, and we recommend it to the consideration of the philanthropic persons interested in finding means for the em- ployment of gentlewomen. Why should there not be organised a body of women-servants, who would in effect be lady-char- women? Why, that is, should not a good deal of the work of a house be done by non-resident servants who would come in and work just as the female clerks in a post-office come in to work, but live and take their meals outside ? A house- maid of this description might come in at 8, and begin at once on the rooms. She would leave at 1 in order to get her lunch, just as does the female clerk, and again at 4 for her tea, and she might go altogether at 6.30, having worked nine hours,—the hour and a half spent on luncheon and tea not counting. of course, in the working- hours. The servant of our thought would in this way be able to lead her own life, and would not be obliged to associate with companions not of her own seeking. No doubt all the servants in the house could not be engaged on these terms. The cook, for example, and the parlour-maid or footman would be required to live in the house, since their service is too much dependent upon the personal wishes of the employer to make it easily assignable to fixed hours. In a household of seven or eight, however, it would be possible, we should think, to arrange for a good deal of non-residential service. After all, no servants get through more work than the servants in a restau- rant; and yet they are almost always non-resident. A good charwoman, again, is proverbial for doing double the work got through by the ordinary housemaid. No doubt the non- resident lady-help would have to be somewhat highly paid— she would have to find food and lodging—but we expect that, like much other highly paid service, it would not prove un- economical. " Mary " sadly muddles away her time, and so her employer's money. Miss Bunter, the energetic daughter of a reduced gentleman, would very probably produce far better results in half the time. Possibly, however, this plan will be pronounced unworkable. If it is, we can only trust some other will be found which will open the employments they are best suited for to the gentlewomen who must earn their own livings.
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