SERVANTS, ENGLISH AND IRISH.
THE Dublin Pilot recurs to a controversy with the Spectator on the anti-Irish feeling prevalent in England, which our contempo- rary supposed to be displayed in the common adjunct to adver- tisements for servants—" No Irishman need apply." Hastily sketching the more obvious characteristics of servants, English and Irish, we ascribed to the deficiencies of the Irish for common servitude the real reasons for the repulsive adjunct.* The Pilot quotes the whole paper, with the admission that "there was an evident effort at impartiality, and it has almost succeeded." We may allow in turn that there is an evident improvement in the view of our antagonist, and that he is almost rational. He pro- ceeds with his rejoinder thus- " We appeal to that impartiality, and we ask, whether, accepting the cha- racters drawn by our contemporary himself, dues not the description of each render the Irish, whatever they may be as servants, as men and women far more estimable than the English ? Nay, is there not in the very qualities he has respectively attributed a higher order in the Irish character ? If the Irish are worse servants, it is easily accounted for, at least in the early stages of their servitude, and is perfectly compatible with the higher moral and intelli ctual -qualities which our contemporary describes them to possess. The poverty of the Irish people's homes accounts for their total ignorance of the initiatory offices of a servant. What preparation can they have gone through in elrly habits ? They never had meat of their own to dress—no boards, no furniture to clean—no beds to make—no clothes of sufficient extent to form or alter ; -not even the cow, to practise the arts of the dairy with, is now left to the poor iriah peasants. They come to service totally uninitiated in those preparatory employments which in an English peasant can be developed when they act in richer establishments. Yet in admitting for the Irish peasants the superiority of intelligence and of heart, does not our contemporary admit their Buse. pti- bility of becoming, when instructed, a far superior class, even of servants, to the dull, plodding, heartless, mere machine-creatures he admits to be the cha- racteristic of the English servants? and do we not therefore perceive in that un-Christian and un-Irish slander at home, implied in the words so prevalent here among the Irish Ascendancy party, No Catholic need apply,' the prop t- gation of its echo in England, 'No Irish need apply,' whether Protestant or Catholic ? "
The writer raises the further question, whether the repudiation is confined to the mere servile race; but into that we need not follow.
In the foregoing passage the ground is a little shifted. The very thing we said was, that Irish are not rejected as men or women, or as inhabitants of a particular country, but simply as servants ; and 'when masters choose servants, the question is, not what suits the domestic in the master, but vice versa. Nor did we consider what the Irish or English could be made, but took them simply as we found them. Individual English masters are not bound to supply defects of Irish education. There is much force in our contem- porary's remarks on that point ; but they have a wider application than he thinks. A good deal of his complaint of bad and defective education applies not more to Ireland than to England. The want of a better education for servants is an English as well as Irish grievance, and is one reason why servants are so " bad." All sweeping condemnations of class are foolish, and we as little meant to condemn the English as the Irish : give both fair play, and both would do better. The "bad" English servant owns the same flesh and blood as make the most virtuous and generous of our race ; but no class is perhaps more imperfectly educated as to mere reading and writing; while, immured from an early age in the kitchen or the nursery, the English maid-servant grows up to be the least taught by experience of any creature in the world.
But the servant class has a heavier charge to bring against the English master. In no country is the servant so haughtily treated, except where he is a slave. There is almost an absence of inter- course between the master and servant : confined to certain se- cluded rooms apart from the family, the domestic is denied the pri- vilege of "followers," as friends of that class are called. It' kind- ness is accorded, it is done as the blessing vouchsafed by a superior to an inferior being. In the commonest acts of daily life, the master, enraged at any impediment to the smooth path of his own intent, usurps the whole will of his servant, and dictates in matters from the gravest to the most trifling, with peremptory command. The servants must not laugh in company, be the jest ever so smart ; must not sing in the kitchen ; must not go out except on errands, and must not loiter then ; must not " associate " with the chil- dren; must not "answer" when scolded, even when scolded wrong- fully; must " know their place,"—which is something far beneath that of the fellow man called master, who sits at the receipt of service from morning till night, and deems it ill-bred to repay a single one with a " thank you." In short, the servant is, not a slave, for he can always give warning, but he is ever a domestic alien, whose " place " is never home, whose daily fellow-sojourners are never companions. Is it wonderful that English servants are dull, sulky, self-seeking, and alienated ? Would not the wonder be were it otherwise ? Much of this bad domineering spirit has migrated with the Anglo-Saxon race, and still prevails in Republican America ; as we learn from native writers. Its opposite can nowhere so readily be found as in despotic Italy ; where the domestic is really part of the family, the com- panion of master and mistress, at table and in conversation ; and where, if the peculiar national wit of the Irishman be not ex- celled, nor the manual skill of the Englishman, both are outdone in heartiness of good fellowship, in discretion, a self-respecting cour- tesy, and broad intelligence. In mere book-teaching both Britons might bear the prize; but the Italian servant has conversed with the master, has danced with some of the family at the festa di hallo in villeggiatura, and has a self-possessed carriage, and a tongue that is even classical. You would say that the Italian is a superior being : not at all; only he is not "kept at a distance," and his common humanity comes out.
* See "The Saxon or the Savage," Spectator, 9th November 1844. If it be a question of making servants better, let us join to do it, both in England and in Ireland; but let us not impute the difficul- ties of that unlucky class to untrue reasons, lest we mislead. We are glad to see the Pilot leading the way among Irish journals in amendment ; for we really believe that much good may be done by making England, its peculiar exactions and customs, its faults if you will, better known to the Irish who depend on English employment.
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