POINTS FROM LETTERS DOMESTIC SERVICE. AND NLTRSING.
May I reply to your correspondent of December 27th, and to others who have written to me ? My letter was abbreviated in printing. I had added that were the bar against domestic service educational, one would have respected the hospital authorities' attitude, but - that it was vocational only was proved by the fact that both the girls I mentioned, being quite intelligent, were finally accepted. Both, however, were accepted at different institutions only on condition that they cut out of their application forms the fact that they had been in domestic servite. In one case the matron warned the girl quite kindly never to refer to it to other nurses. The girl said to me " I shall have to tell lies. Why should I be ashamed of having been in service ? " My original point is surely proved that such a bar militates against the real well-being of two honourable vocations." Snobbery in all classes, together with exclusion from the dole, is responsible for so much of the prejudice against domestic service. Hospitals can only obtain the best material by exalting the vocation, and also by improving its conditions, which still compare so badly with most other careers open to women.—L. GILCHRIST THOMPSON, Hayes Rectory, Kent.
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