seek such a prosaic, vulgar occupation? Could she be aware that
chambermaids must wield brooms, and dust-pans, and scrubbing-brushes,
and handle pokers, and shovel, and tongs, and ashes. That they may
even be asked to stand at the wash-tub, and be seen by the neighbors
in the disgraceful occupation of hanging out clothes. That they may
occasionally have to answer the door-bell in an apron, and usher
finely-dressed ladies into the parlor; or be asked to take a baby out
for an airing, and be stamped at once by the public as a person who
"works for a living." How can a "genteel" chambermaid calmly
contemplate such degradation, least of all perform such duties
faithfully and well? Would not any sensible lady, wishing a
chambermaid, see at once that the thing was impossible? Would she not
know that she might ring her bell till the wire gave out, before this
"genteel" young woman would think it expedient to answer it till she
was ready? And when she sent her up stairs to tidy her chamber, would
she not be sure that this "genteel" creature would probably spend the
time in trying on her mistress' last new opera-hat before the
toilet-glass? And if she sent her out on an errand, involving even a
moderately sized bundle, would not this "genteel" young woman probably
take a circuitous route through back streets to hide her ignominy?
Heavens! what a relief it is to see people self-poised and satisfied
with their honest occupations, making no attempt to veneer them over
with a thin polish of gentility. Such I am happy to say there still
are, in humble circumstances, notwithstanding the bad example
constantly set them by the moneyed class in our country, who are
servilely and snobbishly bent on aping all the aristocratic
absurdities of the old country. "_Genteel!_" Faugh! even the
detestable expression-word "FUST-rate" is music to my ears after it.
* * * * *
After all, I am not sure that my sympathies are not enlisted much more
strongly on the side of servants than of their mistresses, who at any
moment can show them the door at their capricious will, without a
passport to any other place of shelter. Their lot is often at best a
hard one;--the best wages being a very inadequate equivalent for the
great gulf which, in many cases, separates the servant from her
employer as effectually, as if her woman's nature had no need of human
love and human sympathy; as if she did not often bear her secret
burden of sorrow with a heroism, which should cause a blush on the
cheek of her who sits with folded hands in the parlor, all neglectful
of woman's mission to her dependent sister. They who have listened
vainly for kind words know how much they may lighten toil. They who
have shut up in their aching hearts the grief which no friendly look
or tone has ever unlocked, know how it will fester and rankle. They
who have felt every ounce of their flesh taxed unrelentingly day by
day to the utmost, with no approving "well done" to lighten slumber
when the heavy yoke is nightly cast down, know what is servitude of
_soul_, as well as body.
I could wish that mistresses oftener thought of this; oftener sat down
in the gloomy, underground kitchen or basement, and inquired after the
absent mother, or brother, or sister, in the old country; oftener
placed in the toil-hardened hand the book or paper, or pamphlet, to
shorten the tedious evening in the comfortless kitchen, while the
merry laugh in which the servant has no share, resounds from the
cheerful parlor above.
I do not forget that there are bad servants, as that there are
unfeeling, inhuman mistresses who make them. I know that some are
wasteful and improvident; and I know, from experience, that there are
cases where the sympathy and kindness I speak of are repaid with
ingratitude; but these are exceptional cases; and think how much hard
usage from the world such an one must have received, ere all her sweet
and womanly feelings could be thus blunted. I must think that a humane
mistress generally makes a good servant. I know that some of the
servants of the present day dress ridiculously above their
station,--so does often the mistress; and why is a poor, unenlightened
girl more reproachable, for spending the wages of a month on a flimsy,
gaudy bonnet, or dress, than is her employer, for trailing a
seventy-five or one hundred dollar robe through ferryboats and
omnibuses, while her grocer and milliner dun in vain for their bills?
Let the reform in this and other respects begin in the parlor. Our
mothers and grandmothers were not always changing servants. _They_ did
not disdain to lend a helping hand, when a press of work, or company,
made the burden of servitude too heavy. A headache in the kitchen, to
them, meant the same as a headache in the parlor, and, God be thanked,
a heart-ache too. The soul of a servant was of as much account as that
of her mistress; her creed was respected, and no elaborate dinner came
between her and the church-door. How can you expect such unfaltering,
unswerving devotion to your interests, when you so wholly ignore
theirs?--when you spur and goad them on like beasts of burden, and
with as little thought for their human wants and needs? No wonder if
you have poor service--eye-service. I would like to see you do better
in their place. Lift up the cloud, and let the sun shine through into
their underground homes, if it is not a mockery to use the word home.
We exact too much--we give too little,--too little sympathy--too
little kindness--too little encouragement. "Love thy neighbor as
thyself" would settle it all. You don't do it--I don't do it, though I
try to. Human laws may require only of the mistress that she pay her
servant's wages punctually; God's law requires much more--let
conscience be its interpreter;--then, and not till then, we shall have
good servants.
* * * * *
I suppose the most jealous fault-finders on this subject will concede
that mistresses themselves are not quite perfect; of course, they have
often real causes of irritation and vexation apart from the kitchen,
which, we are afraid, do not dispose them to look leniently upon any
additional trouble there. A "flare up" with Betty or Bridget, is apt
to be the last drop in the bucket, the last feather in the balance.
But, unfortunately, it is not taken into account that Betty and
Bridget, being human, may have their little world of hopes and joys,
fears and sorrows, quite disconnected with your gridiron, and
dustpan, and ash-barrel. They also have heads and backs to ache, and
hearts too, though this may not always be taken into the account, by
employers, who, satisfied with punctually paying the stipulated wages
when due, and getting as much as possible out of them as an
equivalent, consider their duty ended. Some day your dinner is over or
under cooked; that day Bridget received a letter from the "old
country" with a "black seal." She did not come to you with her
trouble; why should she? when she might have been a mere machine for
any sympathetic word or look that has ever passed from your woman's
heart or eyes to hers. All you know is that your dinner is overcooked,
and a sharp rebuke follows, and from the fulness of a tried spirit an
"impertinent" answer comes, and you show Bridget the door, preaching a
sermon on the neglectfulness and insolence of servants. Had you been
the mistress you should have been, Bridget would naturally have come
to you with her trouble, and you would willingly have excused at such
a time any little oversight in her duty to you, even though on that
day you "had company to dinner." Take another case. On some day in the
week, when the heaviest family labor falls due, your girl whose
province it is to accomplish it, rises with an aching head, or limbs,
as you sometimes do yourself, and as you do not, she rises from bed
all the same as if she were well. As you have no use for your lips in
the kitchen, save to give an order, and no eyes, save to look after
defects of economy or carefulness, you do not see her languid eyes, or
ask the cause of any apparent dilatoriness; you simply "hurry up"
things generally, and go up stairs. Now, suppose you had kindly asked
the girl if she felt quite well, and finding she did not, offered to
lift from her aching shoulders that day's burden; _suppose_ that? why,
ten to one, it would have done her more good than could any doctor who
ever took a degree, and the poor thing, under its inspiration, might
actually have staggered through the day's work, had you been so cruel
as to allow her.
I wish mistresses would sometimes ask themselves how long, under the
depressing conditions and circumstances of servitude above alluded to,
_they_ could render faithful conscientious labor? Feeling that doing
well, there was no word of praise; and that doing ill, there was no
excuse or palliation; that falling sick or disabled, from over work or
natural causes, there was no sympathy, but only nervous anxiety for a
speedy substitute.
Again. Many mistresses utterly object to "a beau" in the kitchen. Now
could anything be more unnatural and absurd than this? though, of
course, there should be limitations as to late hours. Marriage, with
many of these domestics, is the heaven of rest and independence to
which they look forward; and even if they are to work quite as hard
"for a living," as a poor man's wife, as they have for you, they may
possibly have, as wives--heaven help them--a little love to sweeten
it; and surely no wife or mother should shut her heart utterly to
this view of the case. As to the girl's "bettering herself," let her
take the chances, if she chooses, as you have. Possibly, some lady who
reads this may say, oh, all this talk about servants is nonsense. I've
often petted girls till I have spoiled them, and it is of no use. Very
true, madam, "petting" is of no use; but it _is_ of use to treat them
at all times kindly, and humanely, and above all things _justly_, as
we--women--in their places, should wish to be treated ourselves. It
_is_ of use to make a little sunshine in those gloomy kitchens, by a
kind good night, or good morning, or some such recognition of their
presence, other than a desire to be waited upon. It _is_ of use, when
they are sick or down-hearted, to turn _to_, not _from_ them. All this
can be done, and not "spoil" them. And how much better, even as far as
yourself is concerned, to feel that their service is that of love and
good-will, instead of mere "eye-service." A lady once asked a servant
for her references. There was more justice and less "impertinence,"
than appears at the first blush, in her reply, "and where are _yours_,
ma'am?"
_A CHAPTER ON TOBACCO._
I hate Tobacco. I _don't_ hate all its devotees. Oh, no. In its ranks
are men who would gladly die for their country if need be; and yet no
slave whom they would lay down a life to free, shall be more truly a
slave, than are these patriots to the tyrant Tobacco.
Well--what then? manhood inquires, with his hat cocked defiantly, and
his arms a-kimbo. What then? Only this: we women so wish you hadn't so
disgusting and dirty a habit. Now reach out your hand, take a seat
beside me, and let me talk to you about it.
In the first place, bear with a little egotism. I am not six feet
high; I belong to no Woman's Rights Convention, if that be a crime in
your eyes. I'm just a merry woman, four feet in stature, who would
much rather love than hate everything and everybody in this lovely
world, if I could; who had much rather have friends than enemies if I
could, without muzzling my thoughts, or my pen.
If not--I am going to shut up my umbrella, and let the shower come. _I
hate tobacco._ I am a clean creature, and it smells bad. Smells is a
mild word; but I will use it, being a woman. I deny your right to
smell bad in my presence, or the presence of any of our clean
sisterhood. I deny your right to poison the air of our parlors, or our
bed-rooms, with your breath, or your tobacco-saturated clothing, even
though you _may_ be our husbands. Terrible creature! I think I hear
you say; I am glad you are not my wife. So am I. How would you like
it, had you arranged your parlor with dainty fingers, and were
rejoicing in the sweet-scented mignonette, and violets, and
heliotrope, in the pretty vase on your table--forgetting in your
happiness that Bridget and Biddy had vexed your soul the greater part
of the day--and in your nicely-cushioned chair, were resting your
spirit even more than your body, to have a man enter, with that
detestable bar-room odor, and spoil it all? Or worse: light a cigar or
pipe in your very presence, and puff away as if it were the heaven to
you which it appears to be to him. The "Guide to Women" would tell you
that you should "let him smoke, for fear he might do worse." Suppose
we try that boot on the other foot, and let women drink for the same
reason? Of course you see, to begin with, that I consider woman as
much an individual as her husband. With just as much right to an
opinion, a taste, a smell, or a preference of any kind, as himself;
and just as much right to express and maintain it, if she see fit.
Now, to my belief, drinking would brutify her physically and morally
no quicker than tobacco does him. Because a man is able to stand on
his two legs, it does not follow that his perceptions are clear; that
his temper is not irritable, or morose; that his vitality by long
abuse is _not_ nearly exhausted, and that, when he should be in the
prime and vigor of a glorious manhood. It does not follow that there
are not empty chairs around his table, and little graves in the
churchyard, for which he is responsible. It does not follow that a
sharp answer, a careless indifference, has not taken the place of
loving words and an earnest desire to contribute his share of sunlight
in his home. When I say that tobacco _brutifies_ its devotees, I know
what I am talking about. When a man carries his lighted pipe, or
cigar, into the bed-room of a sick child, to whom pure air is life or
death, we may infer that his selfishness in this regard has reached
its climax. Or when he continues to smoke in the presence of his wife,
knowing that sick headache is the sure result, we may draw the same
inference. Not to mention that your smoker always selects the
pleasantest window, or the best seat on a piazza, or the shadiest seat
under a tree, forcing the ladies of the family, or the circle,
wherever he is, to breathe this bad odor, or remove to some other
locality. Nor does the bland "_I trust this is not unpleasant to you_"
help the matter; while women, so much more magnanimous than men,
receive this reward for their "polite" evasion of the subject.
* * * * *
I go into a newspaper store to purchase a magazine; there stands a
gentleman (?) at my side with a lighted cigar in his mouth, coolly
looking over the papers at his leisure. If I beat a hasty retreat to
another establishment of the same kind, I find other gentlemen (?)
similarly employed. If I get into a street car, even if no one is
"smoking upon the platform," five out of ten of the male passengers
will have parted with their cigars only at the moment of entering,
poisoning still further the close car-atmosphere with this hated
effluvia. At places of evening amusement, concerts, lectures and the
like, the same thing occurs; indeed, they often repeat the horror by
renewing the tobacco-smoke in the intervals during the performance. If
I walk in the street, vile breaths are puffed in my face from pipes or
cigars by every second gentleman (?) who passes. I am getting sick of
"_gentlemen_;" it would be a relief if the great showman would
advertise us a _man_. If a "gentleman" comes in to make an evening
call, he deposits his cigar stump on your front steps just before
entering, and very likely lights another in your front entry before
departing. The man who brings you a parcel, often stands in the entry
smoking, while waiting further orders. The emissary of the butcher, or
grocer, perfumes your kitchen and area in the same manner. Your cook's
male "cousin" smokes when he makes his evening calls. In the railroad
car you are stifled with the remains of tobacco-smoke. In steamboats,
in hotels, it is the same, whensoever a male creature enters. If a
lady exerts herself to get up, or oversee, or engineer, a nice dinner
for some gentleman (?) friends of her husband's, they prove their
appreciation of her good dinner and her good company, by retiring to
another room than that the hostess is in, the moment they have eaten
to satiety, in order that they may smoke till it is time to leave her
very hospitable house.
Said a prominent editor one day to me: "You are right, madam, the
moment a man becomes wedded to tobacco he becomes a--hog!" This is a
strong way of putting it, but the subject is _strong_ in every sense.
Physicians will tell you that men who would resent the imputation that
they were not good husbands and fathers, will selfishly poison the air
of a sick-room and distress the breathing of the invalid without
remorse. I repeat it, I am firmly of the opinion, that tobacco
brutifies equally with drink. The process may be slower, but it is
just as sure. A drunkard will sometimes own that drink hurts him; or
that he drinks too much; or would be better without it; a smoker
_never_. 'Tis true, he will admit that Tom Jones, or Sam Smith, smokes
too much; but not that _he_ ever did, or shall. In fact, he is sure
that in _his_ case tobacco is beneficial; "it soothes him when he is
irritable," which, thanks to tobacco, is so often, that the soothing
process is perpetual. A man said one day to his comrade in the street
cars, "Tom, I really think I should have given up smoking long since,
had not my wife constantly said it was so disagreeable." What better
proof could he have given of its brutalizing tendency?
I know no place where "smoking not allowed," is not a dead letter,
except in church. Even there the cigar stump is often tossed away at
the church porch, and men sit impatiently fingering the vile weed
which is destined to console them, the minute the benediction shall
have been pronounced; now, when a gentleman (?) becomes so enslaved by
this bad habit, that neither the disgust of the female inmates of his
own house, or other houses, who suffer by it, fails to move him, even
though they may not, for the sake of peace, complain; and when the
terrible sight of this smoker's own little son, already going to and
from school with cigar and satchel in company, does not shame him;
when any society, how intelligent soever, is distasteful, nay,
_unbearable_ to him, where tobacco is not permitted, for one I would
not toss up a pin for the choice between that man and a drunkard.
* * * * *
People say: Whence all these matinées of all kinds, operatic and
other, that are springing up in our cities? I answer--Tobacco! "No
smoking allowed here"--if over the entrance of Paradise--and the men
would prefer their pipe with the accompaniment of the infernal
regions. A man can't very well talk with a pipe in his mouth. If a
pipe he prefers to all things else, from the time he returns to his
house at night till he goes to bed, his wife naturally wearies of
watching that smoke curl, though she may be an angel in his eyes in
every other respect. It is dull music, after the petty little
musquito-stinging household cares of the day, to which even the best
mothers and most capable housekeepers are subject, in a greater or
less degree. "When he lights that cigar every night I want to scream,"
said a lovely woman to me. "I am _so_ tired of the house at night; I
want him to talk to me, or go out with me; I should take hold of my
cares and duties the next day with so much more heart if he did. I
love my home; I love my babies; I love my husband; but oh, he _don't_
know how tired and nervous I often get by night, and that silence, and
that suffocating smoke, are so intolerable to me then." Why don't she
_say_ so? you ask. Why? because women are so hungry for a little love,
and find it so impossible to live without it, that they often endure
any amount of this kind of selfishness rather than hazard its loss for
a day. Now, _is_ this right? Is it what a wife is entitled to, after
trying all day to make home bright and happy for her husband?
"And all this fuss about a little smoke," I hear Tom exclaim.
Not exactly. _It is the injustice of men toward women_ for which it
stands the horrible, nauseating symbol. Suppose your wife, fancying
the smell of asafoetida, should keep an uncorked phial of it in her
parlor and bed-room? How long would _you_ stand it? Suppose she should
smoke _herself_ or "dip" in self-defence? Suppose that sweet breath
were to become nauseous? her curls unbearable in near proximity?
Suppose she grew slatternly in her habits in consequence, as all
smokers eventually do? Suppose her little baby's clothes were
saturated with tobacco? In short, that you were disgusted with its
presence or results every hour in the twenty-four, as you would be in
your wife's case.
Now I ask, isn't it just as much a man's duty to be clean and
presentable and inviting to his wife, as it is hers toward him? Well,
replies Tom, men don't look at the subject in that way, and never
will, and now, what are you going to do about it?
Me? nothing. The men will continue to put up their heels at night, and
smoke till bed-time, and think it a bore to go out, _i. e._ with their
wives, and the disgusted women, who really _want_ to be good wives,
and would, if their husbands were more just and manly, will go as they
have begun to do, to the next day's operatic matinée for relaxation;
and after the matinée, a cup of chocolate or an ice-cream tastes well;
and sometimes one meets an agreeable _male_ friend there, who does
_not_ prefer a solitary pipe or a cigar to a little bright and
enlivening conversation with this tired lady.
Women have a right to protest against that which withdraws husbands,
fathers and brothers from their society as soon as they cross the
threshold of home, or else dooms them to inhale a nauseous atmosphere,
and watch the unsocial puff--puff--which is monotonous enough to drive
any woman crazy who already has had quite too much monotony during the
day, and finds little variety enough, in watching the curl from that
eternal pipe. I blame no woman whose only evening amusement is this,
after her children are put to sleep, for protesting, and roundly too,
against such unmitigated selfishness; I blame no woman, whose husband,
when he does occasionally drum up sufficient vitality to wait upon her
out, for requesting that the omnipresent pipe or cigar may for once be
dispensed with, as she takes his arm, on that memorable occasion. As I
said before, men become so utterly brutified by this disgusting habit,
that they lose all sense of politeness and cleanliness. It is quite
time they were reminded of it.
_GIVE THE CONVICTS A CHANCE._
It seems to me that of all the charities in our great city, none is
more deserving of the attention of the benevolent, than that which
takes the little children of our poor, from the moral and physical
filth of their wretched surroundings, and places them in healthy, pure
homes in the country. No one, who has ever had heart and courage to
penetrate the terrible lanes, alleys and by-ways of poverty and crime
in New York, but asks himself with a shudder, as he looks at the
little ones there, what sort of men and women will these children be?
How far will He who counteth the fall of the sparrow, hold _them_
responsible for the dreadful teachings of their infancy? Infancy? the
word is a mockery. They have none. To feign--to cheat--to steal--this
is their alphabet. As to the fathers and mothers, who fold their lazy
hands and sit down in these pestiferous places to await the "penny"
pittances their children may collect, or their little pilferings which
may be turned into "pennies," the sooner the doors of our jails and
penitentiaries close on _them_ the better. _Their_ case is hopeless;
since sin has reached its climax when it deliberately and
systematically debauches childhood. But the little ones? _They_ might
be saved. They _are_ being saved; that's a comfort to know. Daily they
are being collected, by good men who make it their chief occupation to
wash, feed, clothe and transplant these sickly shoots of poverty, into
the fair garden of the West. Many a farmer's family there has a rosy
face by its hearth, which you would never recognize to be the squalid
little creature, whose shivering palm was extended to you at midnight,
as you returned home from some place of amusement in the city. There
it is being taught useful and _happy_ labor. There is pure air--sweet
food, and enough of it. Good company and good books. _There_ are
Sundays. Blessed be Sundays! for injudiciously as they are sometimes
observed even by good people, be sure that sweet old hymn will go
singing through the future life of these children, like a golden
thread, gleaming out from the dark woof of care and trouble:
"Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee;
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee."