OUR KITCR:ENS.
IT is a pleasant duty to say we have at last obtained in the current number of the Edinburgh Review a paper on "Modern Domestic Service" which does not outrage common sense by exaggerations on
either side. The kitchen and parlour are not here set at war with each other, but we have a much fairer view than is usual of what is to be said for servants as well as masters and mistresses, and the aim seems really to be to exhibit each to the other in a true light, to help them to an understanding, and point out the openings for mutual gain in comfort, and something beyond comfort in relative character. The condition-of-kitchens question is just one on which everybody has an opinion to offer, and scarcely anybody is broad and logical. Very sick we have been of it many a time, for what is more wearying than little bits of truth, the small experiences of very good people, when followed by vast deductions condemnatory of whole classes, and lending no help to those who prefer at all times redressing the least fragment of a grievance to being eloquent and expressive on the largest scale about evil in general ?
The article which has on the whole pleased us so well must not be put down, however, as offering satisfactory remedies for acknow- ledged grievances ; but it is much to clear the ground as it does—to show so honestly what is to be said for the class which not being able to answer charges by any means more impressive than burning up our mitten or misusing our furniture is liable to keep up irrita- tion which it is of all things desirable to allay. No fair statement of this comprehensive survey of the different classes of domestic ser- vants can be given here—besides, we are not pretending to review Edinburgh Reviewers ; but it may be worth while to add a few re- marks that have arisen in our minds while reading it.
In the first place, we are much of the writer's mind about the savings of servants. In the face of the painful fact that of those who are now receiving wages of 121., 141., or 15/. per annum, very many will probably end their days in workhouses, we do not think this is always a proof of their extravagance while they are at service. It is difficult to say how they can lay by much. They have little time for mending and making ; the wear and tear of clothes, in towns at least, is enormous ; and how few are there who are not distressed by the wants of poor parents or younger sisters. Neither is it reasonable that all pleasures should be debarred them. They give up independence in taking service—they ought not to be denied every privilege except that of eating or drinking as much as they please. But with all this we fear it is quite undeniable that forecast, "the stitch in time saving nine," is a very rare thing in this class; that the surrounding atmosphere of plenty spoils them, and makes them careless just where care would be most valuable. The habit is bad. It is not so much the immediate saving—that we do not regard as perhaps very great—but these people leave service to marry; often what they bring in money is dissipated very quickly, and they have acquired wasteful ways, which are very much worse than the absence of a dowry. As to the actual end of all this we fear there is no disputing statistics. In St. George's Workhouse, Hanover-square, out of 128 females 94 had been servants (in May, 1849); in Salford Workhouse, 176 females-94 servants ; in St. Pancras, the proportion about the same, or greater; St. James, Westminster, 383 females, of whom 241 had been servants! How can we account for this ? Why should the servant class, say their employers, profit so ill by all they see of order and method and neatness ?—all the good ways they might have learnt, all the am- bitious feeling with which one might think they would have been inspired? And then they recur to the question of saving out of
wages. It is a sad thing to say, but we ourselves do not believe that the reputation of bringing a little more money to a poor man's cottage is always a gain to a woman. The money itself is a temptation, and brings her many offers of marriage ; but except for the habits she may have acquired in the process of saving, we know too well how little good comes of it. Let her save by all means,but the amount cannot in one case out of a hundred secure her a permanent provision. Whatever can give her a greater chance of this, however, should surely be attempted by employers; and, above all things, whatever can help to strengthen the power of self-restraint is to be desired. Most unwilling have we been to listen to those among our housekeepers who contend for a universal money payment to servants, leaving them to manage their own board. This destruction of one portion of a family feeling and habits—a common fare—grates on us harshly, but it must be conceded that we are now in a position which is not to be regarded from a sentimental point of view. It is a question of responsibility. Are we—having removed ourselves, or, at all events, being removed, from the old paternal care of our domestics, not really sharing with them as we used to do, scarcely, indeed, knowing our own kitchens—are we at liberty to reject any discipline of habit and self- management which might be usefully supplied by putting into their
power, not the mere liberty to use our stores as wastefully as they please, but a permanent allowance in board wages, out of which, if a saving is effected, it will be simply at the cost of a little self-denial? The writer of the article in the Edinburgh Review is, on the whole, in
favour of this arrangement. We ourselves simply recur to it as what we know is attempted by some households in London, and it is said with good effect. Ten or even twelve shillings per week has been mentioned for women servants, twelve or fourteen for men. The average board wages at clubs are twelve shillings per week for both men and women. How in a private establishment so paid cooking for the different servants is managed we know not. What if John wishes to cook a beefsteak exactly at the time which Mary the housemaid had fixed on for broiling her herring ? What if the saucepan in- tended for the one is usurped by the other ? If there be a spark of gallantry in him of course John gives way, but Mary may try him once too often, and a hungry man is irascible. We don't see our way to peace for the kitchen. People in this rank of life are seldom inclined for a compromise. They will not agree to cook a joint among them—each must have his own little dealings with the butcher, his own cupboard and larder. We have a vivid remem- brance of the bitterness of complaint with which we were once greeted on visiting the common kitchen of an old-fashioned almshouse or hospital, where, as it would seem, the old people had nothing to do but to be happy; for, "were not they," as the cook observed, "only getting ready for the Lord?" Yet every meal, she said, gave rise to fresh quarrels. No two aged men or women would agree to have the same thing. It seemed to be simply a strife as to which should give the most trouble. We do not apprehend that busy servants have time to be as unreasonable as pensioners of this sort ; but there cannot but be danger of interference in the planning and preparation of these isolated meals.
There are but very few words bestowed by the Edinburgh Re- viewer on schools for training servants. It in scarcely likely that so sensible a person should feel very hopeful of them, when applied to the more independent among the children frequenting British and National schools. It seems to be pretty certain that the parents in this class will not pay for reading, writing, and arithmetic, and be satisfied with house-work and washing and ironing instead. It may be real work, but they do not believe it. All they know is, that the children spoil their frocks, and catch cold at the wash-tub.
But this is just what does not apply to the class below, them. We feel confident that this is the really hopeful servant-class of the day. Orphan or deserted children from the workhouses, and ragged-school children, accept with thankfulness the position rejected by the others. Form your industrial schools for them; scattering them as widely as you can, and you are doing a real and permanent benefit. It is very true that, constituted as our workhouse schools have been, there has been little chance of any good result ; but great light has been thrown upon this matter within the last two or three years, and if we can but persuade Boards of Guar- dians to separate these schools "from pauper life and conditions," "a constant stream of domestic servants" will be the result. The great fear is lest these institutions, for cheapness' sake, should be made too large. If the children are so numerous that cooking is a wholesale affair, and washing and drying are done by machinery, what becomes of the training9 And besides this, the individual child hardly comes in contact with objects adapted to draw out any kindly genuine feeling. Life and its work are meted nut in such fixed proportions, that when the common world is opened before it, the unexercised intellect is entirely at fault. The poorest labourer's child, living on the borders of a duck-pond and village green, has ten times the wit and the affection of these little pieces of machinery. But if the schools are not over large—if those who have the control of them consider less their own trouble than the good of the future woman, variety will be studied. Whether in this variety dress can be included we know not ; but it is one of the disadvantages of a large training school that all are generally in uniform. No opportunity fora knowledge of other materials, no exercise of reason and comparison, no insight into the conveniences or inconveniences of different modes of dress can be afforded on this plan, and it is not much to be wondered at if the dark blue print is succeeded, when first dis- carded, by something absurdly showy. Two hundred children, all in proper and exactly similar costume, give us a death-like chill; but if there must be some of this uniformity, let it be re- lieved, where possible, in the detail. We say nothing of the absur- dity of stiff muslin caps for little women of eight or nine years old. These things are in process, we hope, of decline.
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