The subject of men-servants is by no means of such universal interest
as that of maid-servants, and those who suffer from them are not only
less numerous, but less deserving of pity; as a lady of limited means
once put it in my hearing, 'They can better afford to be robbed and
murdered' On the other hand, whatever truth may be in the dogma that
where a woman is bad she is worse than a bad man, it is certain that
when a man-servant is bad he can do more mischief than a bad
maid-servant. In many cases he is a necessity, not because folks are
rich, but because they have large families, and the service is
consequently too heavy to be undertaken solely by women. I have known
many householders who, weary of the trouble and annoyance given by
men-servants, have resolved to engage only those of the other sex, and
who have had to resort to men-servants again for what may be called
physical reasons.
When this happens, however, both master and mistress should agree to
the arrangement, or at all events be both informed that it has been
made. Only last autumn a lady friend of mine adopted it in the absence
of her husband abroad, and forgot to apprise him of it by letter. He
arrived home late at night, and, letting himself in with a latch-key,
took the strange man for a burglar, and was almost the death of him by
strangulation before he could explain that he was the new butler.
No woman can bring up a luncheon or dinner tray for a dozen people
twice a day without sooner or later coming to grief with it. And here
it is appropriate to say that in places where there is much heavy work
it is only reasonable that wages should be higher than where the work
is light. Whereas, upon such irrational grounds is our whole system of
domestic service built, that this is hardly ever taken into
consideration. Since the servant is told beforehand what he or she will
have to do, it is taken for granted that the conditions are acceptable
to them; whereas, the fact is that the capability of performing their
duties is the very last thing to enter their minds. They cannot afford
to remain 'out of a situation,' and therefore take the first that
offers itself as a stopgap, with no more intention of permanently
remaining there than a European who accepts an appointment in Turkey,
and with the same object—namely, to make as much as possible out of the
Turks in the meantime.
In the case of a man-servant, especially in London, no written
character should ever be held sufficient. A personal interview with his
late master or mistress is indispensable. This gives a little trouble,
no doubt, on both sides; but those who grudge it, for such a purpose,
must indeed be grossly selfish, and when they engage a ticket-of-leave
man for their butler get no worse than they deserve. One of the best
butlers, however, I ever knew was a ticket-of-leave man—engaged on the
faith of a written character, which was, of course, a forged one, and
who remained with his employer no less than eighteen months. If his
speculations on the turf had been successful, he might have parted with
him the best of friends, and perhaps have purchased a residence in the
same square; but something went wrong with the brother to Bucephalus,
whom he had backed for the Derby, and the poor man had to dispose of
the whole of his master's family plate to pay his own debts of honour
and defray his travelling expenses—probably to some considerable
distance, as the police could never hear of him. The risk in taking a
butler without a personal guarantee of at least his honesty and
sobriety can indeed hardly be exaggerated. If a clever fellow, his
influence over his fellow-servants of the other sex is very great, and
it is a recognised maxim of the class never 'to tell upon one another'
so long as they remain good friends. I have heard an experienced
housewife say there is nothing she dreads so much as an unbroken
harmony below stairs; like silence in the nursery, it is ominous of all
sorts of mischief.
Of course, the ticket-of-leave man was an extreme case; but it is
certain that some butlers who are not thieves are always treading on
the very confines of roguery. They are like trustees who, though they
will not touch the principal entrusted to them, not only omit to put it
out to the best advantage, but will sometimes even pocket a portion of
the interest 'for their trouble.' I remember reading a curious case of
this sort. A gentleman who had been with his family in Switzerland for
nine months was met by a London acquaintance on his return, who
expressed his regret at his having been in trouble at home. 'Nay, I
have been in no trouble,' he replied, 'and, indeed, none of us have
been at home.' 'But a month ago when I was passing down your street I
surely saw a funeral standing at your door?' Nor had his eyes deceived
him. The butler in charge had let the house for a couple of months, and
but for his singular ill-luck in one of his tenants happening to die
during their temporary occupation of it, he would have pocketed the
rent (_minus_ the money requisite to keep the maids' mouths shut) and
his master would have been none the wiser. It is said that it is only
when we have lost a friend that we come to value him at his true worth;
and it is certain that it is only when one's butler has left us and the
tongues of his fellow-servants are loosened that we come to learn his
demerits—the difference between his real character and his written one.
If he is a rogue, his evil influence remains behind him, and, next to
the maidservants, it is the page who suffers most from it. He
becomes—poor little fellow!—almost by necessity an accessory to his
delinquencies, plays pilot-fish to the other's shark, and himself grows
up to swell the host of bad servants and that army of martyrs their
masters and mistresses.
A common cause of a butler's ruin, and for which he is much to be
pitied, is his having married unfortunately. I had once a good servant
whom I was very loth to lose, but whose departure became necessary from
his constantly being visited by a wife in advanced stages of
intoxication. Housewives generally prefer a married man for their
servant, for reasons that are not inscrutable. I do not wish to differ
from such good authorities. But though I have no objection to my butler
being married, I do object to maintain his wife, which, if he be on
good terms with the cook, there is a strong probability of my having to
do. As to his own eating, Heaven forbid that I should grudge it to him;
but it is curious and utterly subversive of all medical dogma that both
men-servants and maidservants, who take, of course, comparatively
little exercise, should, nevertheless, contrive to eat more apiece for
dinner than two average Alpine climbers. Four meals a day, and three of
them meat meals, is their usual rate of sustenance, and the food must
not only be frequent and plentiful, but very good. It is a gratifying
proof of the rapid influence of civilisation that the daughter of a
farm-labourer, accustomed at home to consider bacon a treat and beef a
windfall, will, after a month's experience of her London place, decline
to eat cold meat of any kind, reject salt butter as 'not fit for a
Christian,' and become quite a _connoisseur_ as to the strength of
bitter ale. Indeed, two of our present female domestics are
'recommended' to drink claret because beer makes them bilious. I do not
mind giving them claret, but I think it hard that under such
circumstances I should have had a butler give me warning because the
female domestics are 'not select enough.' My own impression is, though
I scarcely like to mention it, because he was a married man, that he
considered them too plain.
The reasons, or at all events the professed reasons, which servants
give for leaving their situations are sometimes very curious. One man
left a family of my acquaintance because he said he was interfered with
by the young ladies. 'Good gracious, what do you mean?' inquired his
mistress. Her daughters, it appears, were accustomed to arrange the
flowers for the dinner-table, whereas, as he imagined, he had a
peculiar gift for that kind of decoration himself.
On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a sensitive master or
mistress to give the true reason for their parting with a servant. A
friend of mine had a footman who, through trick, or some defect in his
respiratory organs, used to blow like a grampus, and indeed more like a
whale, while waiting at table. It was not a vice, of course, but it was
very objectionable, and guests who were bald especially objected to it.
My friend consulted with his butler, who admitted that 'John did blow
like a pauper' (meaning, as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to
break the subject to him. It is quite common to find candidates for
service very deaf, and if they contrive to pass their 'entrance
examination' (for which no doubt they sharpen their faculties), they
stay with you for a month at least with an excellent excuse for making
it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them to do they cannot hear and
do not do it, or do something else which they like better. Mistresses
who are silent about moral disqualifications are much more so, of
course, about physical ones, and have no scruples in ridding themselves
of a deaf man.
The worst class of men-servants, perhaps, are those who are said to
'require a master;' which means that when he happens to be not at home
they neglect everything. A friend of mine who happened to take a week's
holiday, alone, discovered on his return that his family might almost
as well have had no servant at all as the man he left with them; he was
generally out, and when at home had not even troubled himself to answer
the drawing-room bell. Some men-servants are always running out; they
have 'just stepped round the corner,' they say, 'to post a letter;'
which in nine cases out of ten means to have a dram at the
public-house. The servants who 'require a master' sometimes retain
their situation with a very selfish one by devoting themselves to his
service at the expense of the rest of the family. 'John suits me very
well,' he says, 'and thoroughly understands his duties,' which in this
case means the length of the master's foot.
On the other hand, there are some men-servants who, one would think,
ought to belong to the other sex, so utterly ignorant they are of that
branch of their duty which they call 'valeting.' A lady blessed with a
scientific husband, who certainly did not take much notice whether he
was 'valeted' or not, once complained to his man of his neglect in this
particular. 'When your master comes in, William, you should look after
him, and see to his hat and coat, and pay him little attentions.' So
the next time the man of science came in he was not a little surprised
by William (who, it is fair to say, came from the country) running up
and taking his hat off his head, like some highly-trained retriever.
Happy the master to whom a worse thing has never happened at the hands
of his retainer!
The main thing to be dreaded in men-servants—next to downright
dishonesty—is, of course, intoxication. If a man has been long in one's
service and gets drunk for once and away, it may well be forgiven him;
but when your new servant gets drunk, wait till he is sober enough to
receive his wages, and then dismiss him—if you can. Not long ago I had
occasion to discharge a butler for habitual intoxication; he was never
quite drunk, but also never quite sober; he was a sot. I made him fetch
a cab, and saw his luggage put upon it, and I tendered him his month's
wages. But he refused to leave the house without board wages. Of
course, I declined to pay him any such thing; and, as he persisted in
leaning against the dining-room door murmuring at intervals, 'I wants
my board wages,' I sent for a policeman. 'Be so good,' I said,' as to
turn this drunken person out of my house.' 'I daren't do it, sir,' was
the reply; 'that would be to exceed my duty.' 'Then, why are you here?'
'I am here, sir, to see that you turn the man out yourself without
using unnecessary violence.' 'The man' was six feet high and as stout
as a beer-barrel. I could no more have moved him than Skiddaw, and he
knew it. 'I stays here,' he chanted in his maudlin way, 'till I gets my
board wages.' Fortunately, two Oxford undergraduates happened to be in
the house, to whom I mentioned my difficulty, and I shall not easily
forget the delighted promptitude with which they seized upon the
offender and 'ran him out' into the street. He fled down the area steps
at once with a celerity that convinced me he was accustomed to being
turned out of houses, and tried to obtain re-admission at the
back-door. It was fortunately locked, but when I said to the policeman,
'_Now_, please to remove that man,' he answered, 'No, sir; that would
be to exceed my duty; he is still upon your premises and a member of
your household.' As it was raining heavily, the delinquent, though
sympathised with by a great crowd round the area railings, presently
got tired of his position and went away. But supposing my young Oxford
friends had not been in the house and he had fallen upon me (a little
man) in the act of expulsion; or supposing I had been a widow lady with
no protector, would that too faithful retainer have remained in my
establishment for ever?
I have purposely addressed myself to that large class of the community
only who are said 'to keep a man-servant'—that is, one man, assisted,
perhaps, by a page. Those who keep butler, footman, coachman, grooms,
and valets are comparatively few in number, and know nothing of the
inconveniences which their less wealthy fellow-countrymen endure. In
large establishments, if William is drunk, John is sober, and the work
is done for the rich man by somebody; especially, too, if William is
drunk, there are John and Thomas to turn him out of the house and have
done with him. But it is certain that the lower Ten Thousand are not in
a satisfactory condition as respects their men-servants; hardly more
so, in fact, than the Hundred Thousand are in regard to their maids.
The men-servants, however, are not so ignorant of their duties as are
the latter, and if only their masters would have the courage to tell
the truth when giving them their 'characters,' there would be a great
improvement in them. Against the masters themselves (unlike the
mistresses) I have never heard much complaint. Most of them object to
be 'bothered' and 'troubled,' and are willing enough to put everything
into their man's hands, including the key of the Cellar, if only they
could trust him; but at present, alas! this is a very large 'If.'
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