It is a common thing to hear the remark expressed by much-tried
mistresses that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' The observation
may either have been provoked by the misbehaviour of some particular
domestic, or by the injudicious defence of the class by one of the male
sex. For the gentlemen have more to urge in favour of our domestics
than the ladies have, and, as the latter maintain, for a very obvious
reason—'they have much less to do with them.' The statement is cynical,
but correct. So long as a man finds his clothes brushed and his meals
well and punctually cooked, he 'does not see much to complain of,' nor
does he give much thought to the pains and trouble which even that
moderate amount of service entails upon his wife. Unless in great
households, where everything is delegated to a paid housekeeper, it is,
indeed, certain that ladies who are resolved to keep a house as it
should be have, now, from various causes, a very hard time of it. The
old feeling of feudal service, though a few examples—both mistresses
and servants—may still exist of it, is dead; and in its place we have
the employer and the hireling. There are faults, of course, on both
sides; mistresses are accustomed to look upon their servants too much
as machines, and in the working thereof do not, perhaps, estimate
sufficiently the advantages of the use of sweet oil; while servants are
more prone to 'eye-service' than were ever the housemaids of Ephesus.
Which of the two began it I cannot tell, but a certain antagonism has
grown up between these two classes which shakes the pillars of domestic
peace. At the root of it all, as at the root of most evils, lies
ignorance, and in the servants' case ignorance of a stupendous nature.
I have had in my household an under-nurse, who, upon the family's
leaving town for a short holiday, was enjoined to see that the birds in
the nursery (canaries) were well supplied with sand. When we came back
we found them all starved to death. She had given them sand, but, alas!
no seed. This was a girl from the country, who, one would think, would
have known what birds fed upon; otherwise one does not expect much
intelligence from Arcadia. When our last importation (an
under-housemaid) 'turned on the gas' in the upper apartments as she was
directed to do, but omitted to light it, I thought it very excusable;
she had not been accustomed to gas. On the other hand, when her
mistress told her to 'look to the fire' of a certain room, I contend we
had a right to expect that that fire should be kept in. It was not so,
however, and when the lady inquired, 'Why did you not look to it, as I
told you?' the girl replied, 'Well, I did, mum; the door was open and I
looked at the fire every time I passed.' She appeared to attach some
sort of igneous power to the human eye.
Each of these young ladies came to us very highly recommended by the
wife of the clergyman of her native place. Surely, in the curriculum of
the village school, something else beside the catechism ought to have
been included; yet, of the things they were certain to be set to do—the
merest first principles of domestic service—they had been taught
nothing; and in learning them at our expense they cost us ten times
their wages.
It may be said, indeed, that when you employ a young girl who has never
been out to service before, you secure honesty, chastity, and sobriety,
and must not look for the artificial virtues; but, unhappily, things
are not very much better when you engage an experienced hand. The lady
of the house should not, of course, expect too much (in these days she
must be of a very sanguine temperament if she falls into _that_ error);
she will think it necessary to warn the new arrival—although she 'knows
her place' and is 'a thorough housemaid'—that a velvet pile carpet, for
example, should not be brushed backwards. But on more obvious matters
she will probably leave the 'thorough housemaid' to her own devices,
the result of which is that the boards beside the stair-carpets are
washed with soda the first morning, which takes the dirt off
effectually—and the paint also. An hour or two before she was caught at
this, she has, perhaps, utterly spoilt a polished grate or two by
rubbing them with scouring paper instead of emery powder.
Paterfamilias feels these things when he has to pay the bill, but his
wife feels them in the meantime, and it is more than is to be expected
of human nature that she can welcome cordially such an addition to her
household. A prejudice against the girl springs up in her mind, which
is very promptly responded to, and the mutual respect that ought to
grow up between them is nipped in the bud. I am sorry to say that good
housewives are almost always opposed to having servants well educated;
they think that 'knowledge puffs up,' blows them above their places,
and encourages a taste for light literature which is opposed to the
arts of brushing and cleaning. What the 'higher education' of domestic
servants is to be under the School Boards I know not; but I hope they
will not imagine, as the Universities do, that their duty is only to
teach their pupils how to educate themselves. I confess I agree with
the housewives, that, for young persons intended for service, reading,
writing, and arithmetic, with the use of the scrubbing and hearth
brushes, are far preferable acquirements to those of the same three
great principles with the use of the globes. Whether there are any
handbooks in existence, other than cookery books, to teach the duties
of servants I know not; but, even if there are, servants will never
read them of their own free will. Not one in a hundred has a
sufficiently strong desire to improve herself for that. They must be
taught like children, and when they _are_ children, if any good is to
come of it.
It is to me astounding, and certainly makes me very suspicious of the
advocates of women's rights, that they have done little or nothing in
this direction. Why should not some of that immense energy which is now
expended on platforms be directed into this less ambitious but more
natural channel? There are tens of thousands of persons of their own
sex, not indeed out of employment, but who are obtaining employment on
false pretences, who would do so honestly enough if they had had but a
little early training. Unfortunately, the ladies of the platform do not
in general stoop to such small things as domestic matters; they do not
care about mere comfort, they even perhaps resent it because it is so
dear to tyrannous man. If they would only turn their attention to the
education of their humbler sisters, they would win over all their
enemies and put to shame the cynic who has associated Man's Lefts with
Women's Rights.
The only School for Servants I am acquainted with sent us the worst we
ever had, and if it had not been for the very handsome fee it charged
both us and her for our mutual introduction, I should not have
recognised it as an educational establishment at all.
It will naturally be said by men (not by their wives, for they know
better), 'But surely self-interest will cause a servant to qualify
herself for a place, since, having done so, she will command better
wages.' This is the mistake of the political economists, who, right
enough in the importance they attach to self-interest, gravely err in
supposing it to be always of a material kind. They start with the idea
that everybody wants to make as much money as possible. So they do; but
with a large majority this desire is subordinate to the wish for
leisure and enjoyment. Trades unionism, with all its faults, is founded
on this important fact in human nature—that many of us prefer narrow
means, with comparative leisure, to affluence with toil. That this
notion, if universal, would destroy good work of all kinds and make
perfection impossible, is beside the question, or certainly never
enters into the minds of those chiefly concerned in the matter. 'A good
day's work for a good day's wage' is a fine sentiment; but 'half a
day's work for half a day's wage' suits some people even better; while
'half a day's work for a good day's wage' suits them better still. In
old times the sense of 'service being no inheritance' begat habits of
good conduct as well as thrift, for in most well-conducted households,
servants' wages were made proportionate to their length of service. But
nowadays a lady's promise of raising a servant's wages every year is
quite superfluous, since it is ten to one against her keeping her for
the first twelve months. It is no wonder, then, that while the
conviction of service being of a temporary character is, at least, as
strong as ever, the course of conduct it now suggests is to make as
much as possible out of it while it lasts, in the way of perquisites,
etc. With our cooks, especially, it is not too much to say that wages
are often a secondary object as compared with the opportunity of making
a purse for themselves; and the recognised privilege of selling the
dripping affords cover for a multitude of petty delinquencies which if
not positive thefts have a strong family resemblance to them.
Before leaving the subject of short terms of service, it should be
noted that the modern servant openly avows her love of change. An
excellent mistress, and a very kind one, has told me that housemaids
and kitchenmaids have given her warning again and again for no other
cause than this. They have avowed themselves quite happy and contented
in their place, but they want 'fresh woods and pastures new.' When Jack
Mytton was reminded by his lawyer that a certain estate he was about to
sell had been in his family for 500 years, he replied, 'Then it's high
time it should go out of it;' and the same reflection occurs to our
Janes and Bessies. They have been in their present situation a year
perhaps, or two at most—indeed, two years is considered in the world
below stairs the extreme point for any person of spirit to remain under
one roof—and it is high time they should leave it. One would naturally
think that, in the case of young women at all events, they would be
slow to exchange even a moderately comfortable place for a home among
strangers; that they would bear the ills they know of, even if ills
exist, rather than venture on those of which they know nothing; but
this is far from being the case. Nor do they even quit their place in
order 'to better themselves.' They have absolutely no reason except the
love of change. Behaviour of this sort naturally gives some colour to
the remark already quoted that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' I
was almost a convert to that opinion myself when, on one occasion,
having asked a female domestic to be good enough to put my boots on the
tree, she literally obeyed my order. She hung all my boots on the tree
in the garden, and it was very wet weather. But to young persons who
come from the country everything is pardonable—except 'temper.'
The growth of this parasite in both town and country is, however, quite
alarming. Little as mistresses dare to say to the disadvantage of
servants when leaving their employment, no matter for what reason, they
do sometimes remark of them that their temper is 'uncertain.' When this
happens and the fact is communicated to Jane or Betsy by the lady to
whom they have proposed themselves, they have one invariable method of
self-defence: 'Temper, mum? Well, I 'ave my faults, I daresay, but not
_that_; all as knows me knows my temper is 'eavenly. But the fact is,
mum, Mrs. Jones [her late mistress] was a bit flighty.' And she touches
her forehead, and even sometimes winks, to indicate aberration of the
intellect. A really good-tempered servant is now rare; and there are
very few who will bear 'speaking to' when their work is neglected or
ill-done.
What, however, always puts them in the highest good humour is an
expensive breakage. When Susan comes to say, 'Oh, please, mum, I've 'ad
a haccident with the pier glass,' her face is wreathed in smiles. To a
mistress who cannot relieve her feelings by strong language, as a man
would do, this behaviour is very aggravating. If servants do not
actually delight in these misfortunes, I am afraid not one in twenty
shows the least consideration for her employer's purse. It is
charitable to say, when Thomas or Jane leaves the gas burning all
night, or the sun-blinds out in the pouring rain, that they have 'no
head;' but it is my experience that they are very careful, and, indeed,
take quite extraordinary precautions, with respect to their own
property. I am afraid that the true reason of the waste and
extravagance among servants is that they have no attachment to their
employers, and of course it is less troublesome to be lavish than to be
economical. All the education in the world cannot make selfish persons
unselfish; but it can surely implant in them some sense of duty. At
present, so long as a servant is not absolutely dishonest, her
conscience rarely troubles her. This is especially the case with our
cooks, who also—that 'dripping' question making their path so
slippery—draw the line between honesty and its contrary very fine
indeed.
Moreover, they know less of what they pretend to know than any other
class of servant. The proof of this is in the fact that not one in a
hundred of them will cook you a dinner on trial. I have often said to a
cook, 'Your character is satisfactory enough in other respects; but,
before engaging you, will you show what you can do by sending up one
good dinner, for which I will pay you at the ordinary rate —namely,
half-a-guinea?' She won't do it; she says she can cook for a prince,
and affects to be hurt at the proposition. The consequence is that for
a month, at least, we are slowly poisoned. Once only I hired a cook who
accepted these terms. I am bound to say she sent us up a most excellent
dinner, but when I sent for her to pay the half-guinea she was dead
drunk on the kitchen floor. She had taken a bottle of port wine and one
of stout while serving up that entertainment, and afterwards confessed
that during her arduous duties she required 'constant support.' Again,
it is by no means unusual for cooks to succeed to admiration for a week
and then to begin to spoil everything, the proverb respecting a 'new
broom' applying, curiously enough, even more to them than to the
'housemaids.'
These observations are no doubt severe, but they are not unjust; nor do
I for a moment imply that servants are always to blame, and never
mistresses. There are faults on both sides. Ladies often show
themselves as 'unreasonable' as their female domestics. For example,
although very solicitous for the settlement of their own daughters in
life, they often do not give sufficient opportunities for their
maid-servants to find husbands. A girl in service is quite as anxious
to get a husband as her young mistresses, and, indeed, it is of much
more consequence for her to do so. She sees her youth slipping away
from her in a place where no 'followers' are allowed, and it is no
wonder that she 'wants a change.' She has a right to have her holidays
and her 'Sundays out,' and it is the mistress's duty not only to grant
them, but to make some inquiry as to how she spends them. Many ladies
who go to church with much regularity never take the smallest interest
in the moral conduct of those to whom they stand, morally if not
legally, _in loco parentis_, and who may, perhaps, have no other
adviser.
Mistresses of all ranks, too, show a lamentable want of principle in
the matter of character-giving. It wants, no doubt, a certain strength
of mind to write the truth. 'The girl is going, thank Heaven,' they say
to themselves, and they are glad to get rid of her, without a row, at
the easy price of a small falsehood. They lay the flattering unction to
their souls that they are concealing certain facts in order 'not to
stand in the way of the poor girl's future.' What they are really doing
is an act of selfishness, cruel as regards the lady who is trusting to
their word, and baneful as regards the public good. It is the good
characters which make the bad servants. In a certain primitive district
of England, where ministers are 'called' from parish to parish, one of
the churchwardens of X complained to the churchwardens of Y that his
late importation from the Y pulpit was not very satisfactory. 'And
yet,' he said, 'you all cracked him up enormously.' 'Yes,' replied the
churchwarden of Y, 'and you will have to crack him up too before you
get rid of him.'
Now, it is only ignorance which causes ladies to believe that there is
any necessity to 'crack up' the character of a servant. They are not
obliged (though, of course, if the servant has behaved well it would be
infamous to withhold it) to give her any character at all, and they may
state the most unpleasant truth (if they are quite certain of the fact
and can prove it) without the least fear of an action for libel. The
law does not punish them for telling the truth about their servants,
and in another matter also it is more just than it is supposed to be.
There is a superstition among servants that when leaving their
situations before their time is out they have a right to claim board
wages, and that even when dismissed for gross misconduct they have a
right to their ordinary wages for the remainder of the month; but these
are mere popular errors. The only case with which I am acquainted where
neither of these dues was demanded was rather a curious one. A widow
lady advertised for a cook and a housemaid, and procured them by the
first cast of her net. They came together with an open avowal of their
previous acquaintanceship; they were attached to one another, they
said, and did not wish to be in separate service, and wages were not so
much an object to them as opportunities of friendship. The lady, who
had an element of romance in her, was touched with this expression of
sentiment; it was also a great convenience to her to be so quickly
suited; and, their characters being good, she engaged them. They had
come from a house of much greater pretensions than her own, and had
taken higher wages, which might have attracted her suspicions; but she
had very little work for them to do, and she concluded that 'an easy
place' had had its attractions for them. Her servants were well treated
and well fed, and were allowed to see their friends; but she objected
to evening visits, and required the back door to be locked and the key
placed in her possession at nine o'clock every evening. If the front
door was opened she could hear it from every part of her modest
residence (and, being very nervous, she used often to fancy that it
opened when it did not), while a wire for the use of the policeman
connected the ground-floor with an alarm bell in her own room in case
of fire or other contingency. The two servants had been six days with
her when this alarm bell was pealed one night with great violence. She
looked out of window, and beheld a cab laden with luggage standing at
her door. She expected nobody; but whoever had come was more welcome
than 'thieves' or 'fire,' and she went up to the maid's room to bid
them answer the door. She found to her great astonishment—for it was
two in the morning—the apartment empty, and while she was there the
alarm-bell sounded again with increased fury. Looking over the
balusters, she perceived a light in the hall and inquired who was
there. 'Well, it's us two,' returned the cook, 'we're just agoin, so
good-bye. It ain't at all the sort o' place for us, and you ain't the
sort o' missis.' Then there was a shout of laughter, the front door was
opened and slammed to, and the cab drove off with its tenants, leaving
their mistress to her lonely meditations. The two friends had come on
trial, it seemed, and had had enough of it.
That they made no claim for wages of any kind seems quite curious when
one considers what sort of servants, and in what sort of circumstances,
do demand them. And, as a rule, masters and mistresses give in to the
extortion. Yet the law is on their side, nor have they any reason to
complain of it in other respects. The improvement that is needed is in
themselves, and in their relations to those in their employment. Our
young ladies are so engaged in their accomplishments and their
amusements that they have no time to acquire a knowledge of domestic
affairs, so that when they marry they know no more of a housewife's
duties than their husbands. No wonder men of moderate means shrink from
marriage when wives have become a source of discomfort and expense,
instead of their contraries, and have lost the name of helpmate. How
can they be in a position to teach their servants when they themselves
are grossly ignorant of what they would have them learn? There are
certain village schools, indeed, which profess to train their pupils
for domestic service, but they only teach them to be maids-of-all-work,
the least remunerated and the hardest-worked of all the daughters of
toil. They offer no premium to diligence and perfection.
This state of things is very hard both upon mistresses and servants,
but it is not irremediable, and the remedy must come from the upper of
the two classes. Schools are as necessary for servants as they are for
other people; they must be taught their calling before they can
practise it; and schools for servants must therefore be instituted.
With schools will come certificates of merit, and servants will then be
paid for what they can really do, and not, as now, in proportion to
their powers of audacity of assertion.