A MOTHER AT HOME.
“This holiday season is bad for advertisements,” Miss Latimer decided.
“I fear you must give another trial to registry offices. Other methods
take time, especially private recommendations among shopkeepers or
acquaintances—which is the best. You have only a week in which to make
your arrangements. But do not go again to great registry offices, which
let down their nets in wide waters, and catch many queer fish. I know a
little quiet registry about midway between this house and my lodgings.
Not a big professional place, my dear, but a shop. I suppose the
registry is little more than an adjunct to the shop. But when I pass, I
see a great many young women going in and out.”
“Should I have to go there to meet them?” asked Lucy, with a look of
repugnance.
“Oh, dear, no,” Miss Latimer answered. “That is not done save in the
big offices, unless an appointment is desired by some mistress from
the country. Young women who seem likely to suit are sent to wait upon
you in your house. If you decide on this, you can go there and give
instructions to-morrow morning; I can keep house and look after Hugh
during your absence. I wish I could give you better advice, but I think
you must avail yourself of this for the present urgent necessity.”
Lucy accepted the counsel. She found the address Miss Latimer gave
her. It was in one of the long roads which skirt the centre of
London—roads which were rural once, and where, here and there, a garden
still lingers isolated among the shops which have been built over its
neighbours. Lucy’s destination was one of these shops set out with
servants’ caps, aprons, small haberdashery wares, stationery, and a few
cheap books. On the little counter was a big desk laden with ledgers
and festooned with files of letters, and behind the desk stood an
elderly woman. She had an air of old-fashioned gentility about her. She
wore no cap, but her glossy, waving hair, unmingled with silver, hung
in two or three curls and was done up in a crisp little knot behind.
Her brown merino gown was severely simple and well kept, with no frill
or ornament whatever, save an out-of-date embroidered collar, fastened
by an “In Memoriam” brooch. There was nothing frowsy about this woman,
nothing unctuous or self-indulgent in her thin sharp face, nor servile
or fawning in her rather abrupt manner. Lucy was prepossessed by her,
because she was so unlike the official at the big registry office.
This alert person had little encouragement to give. “Generals” were
said to be few and far between. She asked Lucy searching questions
about the situation she had to offer, saying that the young women would
expect her to tell them all about it before they walked so far. She
said that it would not recommend the place to most of them that it was
very quiet; they generally thought that meant a “particular,” fidgety
mistress, and “they didn’t mind a little more work if they could get
the more of their own way.” Lucy said she would prefer an elderly
woman, as she would be left much alone in the house. But the alert
person shook her head, saying that in nine cases out of ten an elderly
woman who would take such a place would drink—a statement which Lucy,
after her recent experience, was not prepared to deny. The alert person
promised “to do her best.” The fee for putting Mrs. Challoner’s name on
her “book” would be only one shilling; she would go on sending girls
till Mrs. Challoner was “suited,” when there would be another charge of
four shillings.
Lucy walked home, feeling that she and the post she had to offer were
at a terrible discount. As she watched the half-starved, slipshod,
ill-clad girls who were carrying packages in and out of various small
“home” manufacturing premises in the district through which her journey
lay, she wondered bitterly what had gone wrong with domestic service,
that its wholesome food, snug shelter, and respectability were rejected
in favour of this tramping, trailing drudgery. She knew enough of
social conditions to know that few of those girls earned wages higher
than her servant’s salary, while these had to provide everything out
of their earnings, and her maid had to buy only her clothes, and had
plenty of leisure to make and mend them. This proved that no mere
increase of wages will bring back the tide of female labour to the
haven of domestic service. It has already voluntarily ebbed away to
decreased emoluments.
This actually comforted Lucy a little. For though she was already
paying all the wage her means could honestly afford, yet she had begun
to reflect bitterly that, between the two registry offices, she had
already laid out six shillings in less than two months, not to mention
“deterioration of household stock” in burnt napery and other kitchen
damages, still less to consider the wear and tear of her own nerves and
the loss of her own time. If she was to go on paying and losing at this
rate, she had realised that it would come to the same thing as offering
twenty or twenty-two pounds a year.
But as she saw those squalid workgirls, it was borne in upon her that
the form of labour she wanted had become scarce at any price, and that
at any wage she might find the same heart-breaking disappointment.
Lucy gazed curiously at the crowds of young women who lounged or
hurried past her. By the signboards on the forlorn houses behind
the decaying gardens, she could guess the callings of the crowd.
There were tailoresses, hat-sewers, cardboard-box makers, artificial
florists. Looking at them, Lucy could not wish that any of them should
change her mind and seek the vacant place in the kitchen. From their
appearance most of them had been living poorly on sedentary work for
years, and whatever they might have been at the beginning, they were
sallow and haggard now. No signs of self-respect were visible on their
raiment, though there was a pitiful display of draggled plumes, and
sham jewellery worn over garments which seemed to have been bought
third-hand, and boots such as one often sees thrown away on road-sides.
Such strength as they had was clearly the strange perverted strength
that resists bad atmospheres and monotonous misery, but few indeed had
any sign of the wholesome vigour that is needed for honest household
work.
“They must have their freedom, I suppose,” said Lucy to herself,
dreamily repeating an axiom which she had often heard thrown down in
scorn and contempt by irate matrons caught in the strait where she was
now fixed.
Their freedom to do what? Freedom to toil at some soul-deadening task
for eight or ten hours to earn a shilling—for the whole round of
the clock to gain eighteenpence. Freedom to live crowded in noisome
rooms among ever-shifting “neighbours,” to go untidy, to eat bad food
ill-cooked. Freedom on Bank holidays with their rowdy crowds; freedom
(when one is not too tired) to run about the gas-lit streets, or to sit
in tobacco-reeking music-halls; freedom, in such dangerous proximity to
the hospital, the casual ward, the pauper’s grave!
Lucy thought of what she understood by freedom. A life of useful
labour, leisure for friendship, books, the joys of music and of
pictures, of flowers and sunset skies, of wild wood and breezy shore.
And then she reflected. If it should be this kind of freedom that girls
wanted—the sort of thing that Lucy herself meant by freedom—could she
promise them that this was to be found in average domestic service any
more than that other freedom for which the poor souls around her were
willing to pay so dear?
“The matter has got out of joint somehow,” she thought. “New social
ideals, both good and bad, have gained sway in these days, and I fear
that the majority of the mistresses have tried to shut out both from
influencing the ways of domestic service. The consequence is, the bad
ideals have withdrawn the mass of girls from household life. I should
not wonder but the mothers of most of these girls have been domestic
servants. Yet what they have told their daughters (possibly quite as
often in commendation and praise as in bitterness and warning) has not
attracted the girls, because they are not living in the same world as
their mothers lived, and they have picked up the fact that domestic
service is, in the main, left stationary in the out-of-date sphere.”
Lucy knew that she had not got her own progressive ideas concerning
domestic service in her own parents’ house. She had got suggestions
when visiting in the houses of schoolfellows belonging to thoughtfully
“advanced” families, and these suggestions had opened her eyes to see
the connection between this department of human life and the teachings
she found in the best books she came across. Miss Latimer herself
had often been helpful. Also when once Lucy’s days of courtship and
marriage had begun, there was a fresh humanity in all Charlie’s ways
of looking at things, which permeated her mind, and carried away
lingering prejudices and preconceptions as a sweet breeze blows away
the stuffiness of long-closed chambers.
Lucy’s own mother, who had died two years before Lucy’s marriage, had
been a matron of the old school, kind and considerate to her servants,
as she would have been to her pony or her dog, but with far less
consideration for their individuality than many sympathetic people give
to that of their four-footed pets. She expected her maids to go to
her place of worship. She would have been surprised ever to see them
with a book, save on Sunday, and then only with books which she “lent”
them. She allowed no variation in their household uniform, and in
their “best” dresses she looked askance at a puff or a flounce. Their
letters had to be addressed to their unprefixed names. No visitors
were allowed. They had their regulated “hours off” once a week, and
these were never diverged from, varied or exceeded. A request for an
arrangement for a fortnight’s holiday would have been met by instant
dismissal.
Even in those earlier days, when Lucy had never questioned the
righteousness of these domestic methods, she had yet somehow got an
uneasy consciousness that they were tottering to their fall. She could
not tell how she had got that impression, whether from murmurs in the
kitchen or from added tenacity in the hand laid on the domestic reins.
The house had been handsome, well kept and comfortable; the service
perfectly regulated and reasonably well paid, the conditions which
long defer catastrophe whether in states or households. It had been as
one of the last strongholds of an ancient _régime_ still holding out,
though outposts are fast falling.
Lucy’s father had not survived his wife many months. He had been
counted a wealthy man, but there had been such a revolution in his
special article of commerce that when he died his estate barely met his
liabilities. Jem Brand, the young stockbroker, had received a small
dowry with Florence when he married her. But after the father’s debts
were paid, there was not a penny left for Lucy, who had thankfully
utilised her natural gifts and the excellent training they had received
by accepting the position of art teacher at the St. George’s Institute,
which position she had filled for more than a year before her marriage.
Perhaps Lucy had grown more inclined to broader ways of thought and
simpler ways of life, because they had brought its crowning joy into
her own life. Charlie Challoner had met her first in her independent
breadwinning capacity. He was wont to say that if he had known her as a
rich man’s daughter he would not have dared to woo her, and it is quite
certain that a young professional man, with all his way to make, and
with neither family nor fortune to serve him, would have received scant
welcome from either of Lucy’s parents.
All these memories glanced through her mind as she hurried home. She
reflected too, that the present transitional and contradictory state
of the domestic world was further indicated by the fact that though
her sister, Mrs. Brand, held all their mother’s household theories,
yet their mother would have disapproved far more of the Brand _ménage_
than she would of Lucy’s household, as that had been conducted during
the seven years of Pollie’s service. Surely this went to show that
the desirable results of the old order of things were now best to be
secured under the new order!
Lucy said to herself—
“Well, I must be patient, and remember that my own position is rather
exceptional. Domestic life, just now, seems to be of the nature of a
series of experiments, while I stand at too critical a corner to find
such experiments edifying or pleasant. I must do what everybody has to
do—from prime ministers down to chimney-sweeps—make the best of the bad
job left by those who have gone before me, and try my utmost not to
make it worse for those coming after me!”
She entered her home, tired enough, and knowing that there could be no
rest till bedtime. But she had made up her mind to be cheerful at all
costs. Lo, on the hall-table lay something which made overflowing joy
to be the easiest thing possible. There was a letter from Charlie!
It was marked “Ship letter,” and the last few lines (which in her
bewildered joy she read first) had evidently been written in wild
haste: “Homeward bound ship in sight—passing close by—Grant thinks
opportunity for letter. God bless and keep you.—CHARLIE.”
“God bless and keep you!” The benediction folded her round. She was no
more tired, no more disheartened. She was ready for anything!
And how much more so after she had read the whole letter! All was going
well. The weather had been so propitious that Charlie had been able
to be on deck nearly all day. He had grown so brown and plump that
he scarcely knew his own face in the cabin looking-glass. It was a
guarantee of the calm weather and of his own strength to enjoy it that
his diary recorded that he and Captain Grant had played chess every
night, and that their games were becoming prolonged and scientific.
When Miss Latimer had joined in the rejoicing, when Hugh had had his
father’s letter to kiss, when the cat had had it to sniff—and had
been decided to show much more interest and emotion than when the
performance was repeated with a circular—when Lucy had written a
postcard to hurry after the letter she had just sent to her husband—an
ecstatic postcard, “Your ship letter received. Oh, so happy—so thankful
to God!”—when all these things were done, then she turned back to her
household cares and burdens, strong enough to bear the heaviest.
By this time Miss Latimer had taken her departure, and Lucy and her
little laddie were alone. There was something for her to do from
morning till night. She would not even call in the service of the
charwoman, for she remembered that its results had not been too
satisfactory even upon the perfect order and straightforwardness that
Pollie had left behind her. Mrs. Challoner soon found that Jessie
Morison’s month of service had not been quite so satisfactory as it had
seemed. Little things had gone astray, little household matters, for
which she had given Jessie money, were left unpaid—the whole amount
perhaps not rising above three or four shillings. Still, all this
determined Lucy to keep her own hand on the household helm for the
moment. She could postpone the duties of wardrobe and store closets
which she had assigned to herself for this last week of leisure. She
would be general servant, nurse, and housemistress for once before she
turned breadwinner!
The weather was cold, but it was bright and cheerful, and Lucy got real
enjoyment out of her mornings in the genial warmth of the kitchen, with
Hugh eagerly watching and proudly helping in those homely labours which
delight all children. Do the banquets of after-life ever furnish such
delicious dainties as that scrap of paste, extra from the pie-crust,
which mother or elder sister sweetens, and rolls out, and cuts patterns
upon, and pops into the oven, all before one’s eyes, and which we wait
to see taken out crisp and brown?
Hugh was a happy little boy in those days. Had not papa’s letter
enclosed a scrap of paper covered with o’s, and inscribed, “All for
Hughie himself,” and didn’t Hugh know that these meant kisses? Then
there was nothing to hinder him from trotting after mamma all day long,
and she often sent him upstairs or downstairs to fetch her a brush or
a duster. She even let him help her make a bed. She told him he was “a
useful little boy,” and that praise came to his ears with a pleasing
novelty, which “a sweet darling” or “a precious dear” had lost. She
let him watch her cleaning his little boots, she let him try to do it
himself. That effectually convinced him how naughty it is to dip one’s
foot in mud just for the fun of doing it. And while these delights went
on the mother and child talked about the time when Hugh would be a man,
perhaps a great explorer, alone in strange countries, and how well it
would be for him to know how to do things for himself.
“Or I’ll do them for you when you’re very, very, very old, mamma,” he
had said, and Lucy had been half-staggered and half-amused when he had
next asked whether it would not be fully time for him to begin next
year!
“No, I don’t think I shall want much done for me quite so soon,” she
had cheerfully replied; “but you may be able to do something for
yourself. I think boys and all men who are not very busy and tired out
with doing other things, ought to clean their own boots.”
“I think I’d like cleaning boots,” said Hugh. “If papa doesn’t come
home soon, I’ll get a box and go to the corner of the street and say,
‘A brush, sir!’ and I’ll bring you home all the pennies, and we’ll have
a lot of money, and you can tell papa he needn’t hurry, I’m taking care
of you.”
If here and there the childish prattle touched chords athrill in Lucy’s
heart, there were full amends when Hugh put his little arms about her
and whispered—
“Don’t let’s have any new servant, mamma—you be the servant yourself.”
“Ah, my pet,” she answered, “I’m afraid that’s a luxury out of my reach
just now!”
She questioned herself sometimes whether it might not have been wiser
had she never taken up her money-earning scheme, but had simply
resolved to live within narrowest limits on their savings during
Charlie’s absence? Yet the answer always came, that but for this
money-earning scheme, she would scarcely have dared to propose this
journey to Charlie, and it was still less likely that he would have
entertained the idea. All seemed turning out so happily that perhaps
such a venture might have well been made; but before ventures are made
one has to reckon with fears as well as with hopes, to provide against
mischance as well as to prepare for good fortune. Also, when Charlie
should return in restored health, however strong and cheerful he might
be, a depleted treasury would have been a drag, which might easily have
destroyed much of the benefit received.
Yet strong was her own longing for quiet home life, and keen was her
consciousness that the impending arrival of another dubious stranger
was the sole element of anxiety and difficulty following her about
among her household tasks. From these she didn’t shrink in the least,
and she felt sure custom would soon make them easy and pleasant. She
could not help feeling thankful that decision or reconsideration was
now out of her reach. Her engagement with St. George’s Institute was
made for the year, and must be honourably fulfilled.
It was tiresome to be interrupted in some kitchen or bed-chamber task
by a ring of the door-bell, and only to find some obviously unsuitable
“young person” sent from the registry office. She had to meet the
half-derisive smile with which some of them noted that “the missus”
herself had answered the door. She had to endure the contemptuousness
of their rapid survey of her working toilette—the white handkerchief
knotted about her hair, and the blue-checked apron. One or two of them
at once said candidly “that the place would not suit.” To others she
had to say the same. Yet her week of choice was rapidly passing, and
she feared she might be forced to accept Mrs. Brand’s advice and “not
be too particular about everything.”
Sometimes she wondered, after all, if she and Charlie had made a
mistake and had started too ambitiously at the very outset. Yet they
had then seemed entrenched on the safe side. Her own kin, beginning
with the Brands, had all thought the little house with the verandah
only too small for a young man of Charlie’s talents and prospects.
“You will have the trouble and expense of speedy removal,” they had
urged.
These kindred had said, too, that the furnishing was unnecessarily
simple. “That was a fault which might be gradually remedied,” Florence
Brand had remarked. “But it was well to make a dash at the beginning,
even if one economised afterwards, because in the first year of one’s
married life people noticed one’s house more and talked about it more
than they ever did afterwards.” But Charlie and Lucy had been firm,
because they were determined not to run in debt, because they wanted to
save as much as they could, to possess nothing that would be costly in
its up-keep, or likely to tempt them into expensive ways, and because
they both loved the beauty of simple form and the sweet cleanliness of
things that are easy to dust and possible to wash.
Then Florence had privately urged Lucy to start with two servants.
“Get two smart girls for low wages,” she had said, “you won’t have much
to do for a long time, except to watch that they are honest. It sounds
well to say ‘my cook’ and ‘my housemaid.’ People think of a general
servant as a mere slavey.”
But Lucy had steadily persisted in having only one, and Pollie’s
diligence and progress had rewarded her.
Now, however, Lucy asked herself whether Charlie and she had done
the very best after all. True, they had not satisfied the ideas of
the Brands and others; but ought they not to have gone still farther
in the opposite direction and contented themselves with a tiny flat
and foregone any regular servant? It was true that the plan they had
followed had been sound enough economically. The lease of the little
house in Pelham Street had been bought by Charlie’s prenuptial savings,
and the yearly expenditure had not been much larger than it must have
been in the imaginary flat, Pollie’s domestic help having given Lucy
time to do all the family needlework and to economise in those ways
which leisure makes consistent with grace and beauty. To Lucy the life
seemed to have been idyllic. But, then, at its foundation had been
Pollie. So, if Pollies were an element not to be readily reckoned upon,
life only was secure when it was planned to do without them.
(_To be continued._)
USEFUL HINTS.
GENERAL RULES FOR MAKING JAM.
1. Gather the fruit on a dry day.
2. Pick it over carefully and see that it is free of insects, and take
away any that is decayed.
3. Put the fruit in the pan and let it juice over the fire; add the
sugar, which should be warmed, by degrees.
4. Use good white sugar for preserving; the cheaper kinds do not go so
far.
5. Three-quarters of a pound of sugar is enough for any fruit unless it
is very sour, when a pound may be used.
6. Stir often and do not let the jam burn.
7. Skim well.
8. Bring to the boil after the sugar has melted, and boil until done.
9. Put a little on a plate, let it cool, and see if it will set; if so,
it has been cooked enough.
10. Let the jam cool, and pour it into jars.
11. Let it get perfectly cold, lay a round of paper that has been
dipped in brandy on the top inside the jar, and tie down larger pieces
outside. When tied down brush over the top with white of egg.
TO RENDER DOWN FAT. _Method._—Take any pieces of fat, cooked or
uncooked, cut them up and remove all skin and any pieces of meat there
may be on them, put them in a saucepan with enough water to come
halfway up the fat, put on the lid and boil for half an hour; take off
the lid and let the water boil away; when the pieces of fat are brown
and crisp, take the saucepan off the fire and let the contents cool a
little; strain off the liquid fat into an earthenware pan or tin. This
can be used again and again for deep fat frying, if strained after each
using, and will keep for a long while. It is excellent for cakes and
pastry.
STRAY LEAVES FROM ASSAM.
TWO WIVES.
“And my man?”
“Your man was shot down amongst the first who fell.”
The questioner turned away without a word, and lifting her child from
the ground, slung it in her cloth and left the bungalow.
A terrible disaster had occurred. A political officer had been attacked
and killed, and his escort cut to pieces, by the Angami Nagas. A few of
the survivors had succeeded in reaching the stockade, and one of them—a
bright young fellow who had marched out two days before, leaving behind
him a one-week’s bride—was having an ugly wound on his head dressed by
the native doctor.
A crowd of terrified women surrounded him, eager to hear his fearful
tale, and by degrees they learnt the truth—not one could hope her
husband had escaped, for he believed himself and one companion
to be the only survivors out of eighty men. It was a sad tale of
mismanagement, treachery, and bloodshed.
“We were in a trap,” the young fellow explained in broken sentences.
“They fired upon us suddenly and killed a lot before we could escape to
open ground. Kama Ram got us together at the foot of the hills, and we
fought hard until he fell.”
A fair-faced Nepalese woman covered her face with her cloth and broke
into low sobs.
“Yes,” he continued, “we fought hard; but half our men were killed,
and the Nagas were there in hundreds. If we could have kept them off
till dark we might have got away; but they surrounded us, and after
Kama Ram was shot there was no one to lead us, and we got broken up and
scattered. He told us to leave him there and fight our way back to
warn the Sahib at Kohima; but how could we leave him? We carried him
away, firing and then retreating. And so we got away, a few of us; but
Kama Ram was heavy—was he not a big man?—and he said, ‘Oh, brothers,
let me alone to die! I am dying now, and you must save your lives and
get back to Kohima and help the Sahib; they will go there. You cannot
save me. Put me where they cannot find me, as they will take my head.’
And then he died. We hid his body well, and then came on, and only two
of us are here, and the Nagas are now on their way; they wait to take
the heads. By daybreak they will come.”
The little Nepalese woman crept quietly away. Her child was sleeping
in a corner of the over-crowded room, and she sat by him with her head
turned against the wall and cried not loudly but most bitterly.
“What is the use of crying?” asked the other women in high-pitched
trembling voices. “We shall be killed too in the morning.”
“Yes,” said the wounded man, “we shall all be killed. There are
thousands of them coming on us.”
Then came the quiet question from a broad-faced rosy Naga woman—
“And my man—did you see him?”
Without the slightest sign of sympathy or feeling the curt answer came—
“Your man was shot down amongst the first that fell.”
Without a word she went away. None of the women had any sympathy to
waste upon a Naga woman, even though her husband had been a constable
and she had left her home and people to live with him. No one
attempted to detain her, or said a kind word as she passed.
Following her out, I asked her why she went away, and warned her not to
go. Her child would probably be killed by the first Angamis that she
met, because her husband was well known.
“They will not harm the child. I must go and find my husband,” she
replied, and passed on into the darkness and the rain. The chance
of finding him alive urged her to hurry on. If he had fallen in the
first attack, she knew the place, and made her way straight for it.
But perhaps he was not killed. He might have been one of those who had
rolled down the steep khud from the narrow pathway where they fell, and
she would find him wounded, but safely hidden, at the bottom of the
khud. If he was dead, she might yet be in time to save his head and
bury him, and hide him from the cruel hands of her savage countrymen.
The Nagas met her on her way and jeered at her, asking her where her
Sepoy husband was; but still they let her pass, and on she went. Who
can describe the horrors of that journey!
The darkness hid many a ghastly sight, but daybreak found her near the
scene of her disaster. Murdered men lay across her path headless, with
gaping wounds; shrieks of despair rang in her ears from many a poor
wounded wretch who had escaped in the night only to fall into the hands
of his enemies in the morning; and yells of fiendish triumph went up as
each new victim was discovered and despatched.
ESMÉ.
ON A VERY OLD PIANO:
LATELY SEEN IN A LONDON SHOP WINDOW, AND LABELLED, “CASH PRICE, TWO
GUINEAS.”
Poor faded, long-neglected thing,
Not worth a glance
From eyes disdainful as they pass,
While you stand there, the sport, alas!
Of circumstance.
Too true! and yet if you could speak
Of years gone by,
How many happy memories
Might whisper from your yellow keys
With muffled sigh.
For, as I look, the street and shop
Both disappear—
I see a room with cheerful light,
A ruddy fire, and faces bright,
And _you_ are here.
Before you sits a little maid,
Her dainty feet
Scarce touch the floor. She proudly plays
A quaint old tune of other days,
Most strangely sweet.
The vision fades, but once again
My eyes can see
A pleasant chamber, long and low,
With antique chairs placed in a row,
And tapestry;
With solemn portraits on the wall,
And goodly store
Of silver, china, bric-a-brac,
Carved shining tables, old and black,
And polished floor.
The windows open on a lawn,
The sunset glows,
The birds sing on in pure content,
The air is perfumed with the scent
Of summer rose;
While strains of music, softly sad,
From fingers white,
That rise and fall in cadence clear,
In sounds melodious to hear,
Float through the night.
Quick steps approach: and hushed your strains
(The birds still sing)—
Imprisoned is the player’s hand,
The lovers twain beside you stand,
And Love is King!
So wags the world—’tis up to-day,
To-morrow down.
_Your_ reign is over: here you wait,
“_Cash price, Two Guineas_” is your fate
In London Town.
SOME HOLIDAY MUSIC.
Fine fun can be had out of two action songs by William Younge and
Lionel Elliott (J. Williams). They just suit the merry season for
youngsters of the family who must have amusing and interesting ideas
to keep themselves and others happy. One is called “Home for the
Holidays,” and the other, “Making the Pudding.”
For our tiny nursery people there is a really capital shilling book by
Florence Wickins, consisting of “Merry little tunes, including all the
original melodies to the nursery rhymes and a complete set of dance
music for little folk” (Wickins & Co.). It is in clear, big print, with
a gay cover, and there are some dear old favourites therein, such as
the undying Miss Muffet, Tom Tucker, Lucy Locket, Baby Bunting, and
other heroes and heroines of nursery lore in days of yore.
Schoolboys and schoolgirls too will join with fervour in Scott-Gatty’s
new “Country House Songs” on “Golf” and “Cricket” (Boosey), and
these will not fail to attract boys and girls of an older growth, so
admirable are they.
Some stirring ditties suitable for musical entertainments after
schoolroom teas are two rousing naval and military lays with telling
refrains, namely, “Beresford’s Boys,” by Lionel Hume (Weekes), and
“The Life of a Soldier,” by Gerald Lane (Enoch); “Two Gay Owls,” by M.
Van Lennep (Doremi), with characteristic “tu-whit to-whoos” capable of
expressive rendering, and “De Blue-Tailed Fly,” a plantation song by G.
H. Clutsam (Stanley Lucas), the buzzing chorus of which can be given
with much dramatic feeling!
Pretty little light pieces, all suitable for bright occasions,
interludes for tableaux, charades, &c., are the following: “Danse
Chic,” by Arnold Olding (Cramer); “Mountain Gnomes,” by Wilhelm
Popp (Ashdown); “La Lucette,” by Gladys Hope (Weekes); “Vous Dansez
Marquise,” by Augusta de Kabath (J. Williams); “Chanson de Louis
Seize,” by G. Bachmann (Ashdown); and a small book of “Three Dances” by
Corelli Windeatt (J. Williams).
These popular marches are desirable for the same purposes, namely,
“Santiago,” by Walter von Joel (Ashdown); “The Charge at Dargai”
(Cramer); and the “British Outpost,” by Lionel Hume (Weekes); while the
quicker polka marches of “Gringalet” and “Automobiles,” both by Ad.
Gauwin (Chappell), are spirited in music and in dashing frontispieces.
Two nice little operettas for children are “Cock Robin and Jenny Wren,”
by Florian Pascal, and “The Maid and the Blackbird,” by Ed. Solomon (J.
Williams).
James C. Beazley writes a humorous and useful little partsong entitled,
“There was a Little Man” (Doremi), who, as we know, “had a little gun,”
and this sporting episode is facetiously and effectually carried out in
the music.
Songs from Lewis Carroll’s “Sylvie and Bruno” (all in one small cover)
are most amusingly quaint. Listen to the euphony of “King Fisher’s
Song.”
“‘Needles have eyes,’ said Lady Bird—
Sing Cats, sing Corks, sing Cowslip Tea—
‘And they are sharp—just what
Your Majesty is not.
So get you gone—’tis too absurd
To come a-courting me!’”
And other lines linger in our memories like—
“Sing Prunes, sing Prawns, sing Primrose Hill,”
and so on in the inimitable spirit of “Alice in Wonderland” again.
The “Witch o’ the Broom” Lancers and Quadrilles by Fabian Rose
(Phillips and Page) are as easy as easy to play from sight, so is “The
Farmyard” Barn-dance, with a racy title-page for small folk (Phillips
and Page), and in a loftier sphere the “Malmaison” Waltz by Caroline
Lowthian (Metzler), and “Poppyland” Waltz by Cyril Dare (Cramer).
There are four “Characteristic Dances” by H. J. Taylor (Weekes), all of
which might be prettily danced in character, the Grecian (No. 2) and
the Japanese (No. 4) especially.
Some exceedingly facile and effective violin solos are No. 1, “The
Children’s Home” of Cowen’s, and No. 10, Canzonetta by C. Borelli, of
Morley’s Melodious Gems; “Sunny Memories” and “Good Wishes,” by Henry
Tolhurst (Phillips and Page); a “Song Without Words,” by M. Marigold
(Novello), and a convenient shilling book (Wickins) containing the
beautiful “Träumerei” of Schumann and other choice little pieces for
pleasurable performance. “Twelve Carols,” by M. C. Gillington and F.
Pascal, are full of interest and of beautiful and original ideas in
words and music (J. Williams).
MARY AUGUSTA SALMOND.
[Illustration: ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS]
STUDY AND STUDIO.
KATIE ROBERTS.—No apology is necessary in sending your verses, but we
fear you would scarcely be able to write anything for publication. The
metre of your lines is incorrect; occasionally you begin a verse with a
line far too short, _e.g._, “He is, we all know it.” “The Unseen Guest”
is the better of the two poems, and we think it is natural to beguile
hours when you are not on active duty by expressing these thoughts. It
is not the substance but the form that we criticise. You should study
the laws of versification.
LISA.—We must commend to you the advice contained in the last clause of
the preceding answer. If you wish to improve in writing verse, study
the laws of metre, which you will find in any good handbook of the
English tongue. In “Wait,” the second line is two syllables too long.
“Guest” and “bless” do not rhyme.
APPLE BLOSSOM.—We have read your story, and are afraid we must
literally comply with your request to “pull it to pieces.” The central
incident is most improbable. Prosperous theatrical managers do not
steal plays by copying manuscripts left with them for perusal. As
“Claude” received his MS. again, you must see that detection was
absolutely certain, and no motive is suggested for the extraordinary
act of Sir Francis Lockhart, whom you should not call “Sir Lockhart.”
Claude acted with foolishness and ingratitude in angrily refusing the
offer of his uncle, which is so scornfully mentioned, of a “stool in
his warehouse,” and genius does not burst forth in a moment in the
construction of a successful play, nor the production of widely-read
magazine articles, by a half-educated youth. These faults in your story
proceed from ignorance of real life, but there are also very many
defects in style; tautology is frequent, and you should not write of
a “flunky,” nor of “Belgravia Square.” We hope you study the book we
recommended to you. There is no “royal road” to literary success of any
kind, even for aspirants with talent.
ARBUTUS.—We can mention in reply to your query, the Cambridge Training
College for Women Teachers (fees £60 to £70 a year for residence,
tuition, etc.), and recommend you, for particulars of teachers’
training, also to apply to the Secretary, Association for the Education
of Women, Clarendon Building, Oxford. You do not say for what sort of
teaching the training is required; but for elementary schoolmistresses
there are a great number of colleges. The Bishop Otter Memorial
College at Chichester is intended for the daughters of the clergy and
professional men: fees, £20 per annum for Queen’s scholars, £50 for
private students. In Ireland there are the Marlboro’ Street Training
College, and the Church of Ireland Training College, Dublin. Stockwell
College, Stockwell Road, London, is a fine college: fees £25 for two
years’ board and tuition. For a full list of these training colleges
for elementary schoolmistresses, and particulars of the entrance
examination, apply Education Department, London.
MOLLY.—It would certainly not be “waste of time” to take lessons in
drawing. You evidently have a love for it, and a good idea of copying.
It would always be a pleasant resource for you.
CONSTANCE.—Apply to the _Times_ Office, London, for the number
containing Rudyard Kipling’s Jubilee poem. We believe it first appeared
in _Literature_, but you will obtain information there.
MRS. E. M. L. KNIGHT.—1. We think you could not do better with your
little boy than to adopt, as far as you can, the Kindergarten system.
If you were to write to the Froebel Society, 12, Buckingham Street,
Adelphi, London, W.C., you would probably be told of some book or
books by which, as you seem a thoughtful and intelligent mother, you
could guide yourself in the work of training the child’s faculties
of observation and attention, and imparting knowledge of “natural
surroundings.” It is pleasant to see the little children at the
Kindergartens modelling in sand the promontory, island, hill, and
showing the course of a river from its spring on the mountain to the
sea. This is just one instance of the sort of occupation that teaches
and amuses them. Considering what you tell us, we think if you could
devote a part of each day to your boy, it would be far better than
sending him to the village school. As he is only 2½ years old, there is
plenty of time for school life.—2. A very useful though not new book
on children’s ailments is Dr. Pye Chavasse’s _Advice to a Mother_. The
National Health Society, 53, Berners Street, London, W., will send you
a list of medical books or pamphlets for household use.
ELIZABETH.—1. We should consider that Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Sir
James Simpson, Sir Richard Owen, Lord Lister, Edison, Röntgen, Sir
William Huggins, Professors Dewar and Ramsay were among “the greatest
scientists of the present age.” We cannot possibly give you a full list
here.—2. Your writing is clear, but inclined to be too childish in
its thick down-strokes, and long loops to y’s and g’s. It needs more
freedom.
J. J. A.—We refer you also to Mrs. Watson’s articles on “What are the
County Councils doing for Girls?” and—if you cannot consult them—to
the Secretary of the Board of Technical Education, St. Martin’s Lane,
London. You might also write to the Secretaries of Queen’s College,
Harley Street, W., and of Holloway College, Egham, for particulars of
scholarships in connection with those institutions.
EDYTHE.—We think a very interesting way to teach young children
spelling is to give them a good box of letters (“Spelling-Game”), and
let them fill the frame with words, either from memory or from a book;
or the letters of a word may be given loose to the child, and he be
required to form the word himself. Games may easily be arranged with
the letter-box for several children. Many thanks for your enclosure.
GIRLS’ EMPLOYMENTS.
ISABEL (_Art Needlework_).—You would be very well taught in the Royal
School of Art Needlework, Exhibition Road, South Kensington; the fee
for instruction is £5. The School does not, however, guarantee to find
work for its pupils, but some of the latter earn an average income of
£1 a week. In art-needlework shops, the payment is usually much lower,
14s. or 15s. a week being not unusual. If you are fond of needlework,
could you not learn dressmaking at a technical institute, and then go
out as a visiting dressmaker? You would do better in this way than as
an embroideress, for you could earn about 2s. 6d. a day, and would
receive board during the time of your engagement.
A YOUNG CORRESPONDENT (_Helping others_).—The fact that you are very
young need not prevent you from helping other people as you wish to
do, and from making yourself useful in the world. If you can knit, you
might write to the secretary of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, 181,
Queen Victoria Street, E.C., and ask whether you could knit mufflers
or mittens for the fishermen. Another kind of work in which help is
required is in embossing books in Braille type for the use of the
blind. In regard to this work, you should apply to the Hon. Secretary,
British and Foreign Blind Association, 33, Cambridge Square, W. Do not
trouble about the other matters you mention. Girls in their teens often
do not look their best, and the complexion nearly always improves in
later life. With a pleasant manner and a neat becoming style of dress,
a girl may always make an agreeable impression, whereas there are many
handsome girls who are so selfish and disagreeable that their beauty
gives no pleasure to anybody, not even to themselves.
PANSY (_Advice_).—It would be a great mistake to become a companion,
although you do say that such a career is your ambition. Companions
occupy an anomalous position; their duties are undefined, and their
services are consequently little valued. And, after middle life, the
companion usually finds herself without an engagement, and without a
profession of any kind. You say you do not wish to become a governess,
but at the same time you feel yourself competent to teach children from
seven years old to twelve. Now, under these circumstances would it not
be wise to become an elementary school teacher? Your pupils would be of
the ages mentioned, and you would have an occupation by which you could
almost certainly earn a living. Elementary teachers are now in great
demand, for this very reason, that so many girls will try to become
companions and secretaries. Had you been under eighteen, you might have
become an apprentice as a pupil-teacher in an elementary school; but as
you are eighteen already, you had better pass the Queen’s Scholarship
Examination, and then seek employment as an assistant teacher, or, much
better, enter a teachers’ training college. You could study all the
requirements more fully by obtaining through a bookseller a copy of the
New Code, issued by the Education Department. If you wanted further
advice, it is probable that some Board School or National School
mistress in your own town would give it.
SNOWBALL (_Typewriting, etc._).—A typist and shorthand writer, employed
as a clerk in a City office, usually receives a weekly salary of from
18s. to 21s. to begin with, rising at the end of a year or two (if she
is really competent) to 25s. and, after that, rising again possibly
to 30s., 35s., or any amount not exceeding £2. But many girls do
not advance beyond 25s. per week, and employment is to some extent
precarious, as so many girls can now do typing and write shorthand with
moderate skill. But we consider that a girl occupies a tolerably secure
position who can do verbatim reporting, and can be relied on to take
down all that is said at a long meeting, which, when interruption and
discussion takes place, is by no means an easy task. But as you are
quite young, write a good clear hand, which you will doubtless improve
within the next twelvemonth, and are determined to work, we should
counsel the Post Office Department of the Civil Service in your case,
especially if you pass the Cambridge Junior Examination well, for which
you are preparing yourself. You should try to get into the Service as
a girl clerk as soon as you are sixteen; that is better than waiting
till you are eighteen to enter as a woman clerk. Pay great attention
meantime to your studies in French, German, geography, arithmetic, and
handwriting. Girl clerks begin at a salary at £35, and women clerks at
£55. The latter are eligible for a pension after a certain number of
years’ service.
KALIFA (_House Decoration_).—We do not quite agree with you that there
is an increasing demand for ladies who undertake house decoration. To
succeed in the business, a girl ought to be apprenticed to a decorator
who will teach her how to draw and design furniture, and to see that
workmen carry out orders properly. To learn the business thoroughly, a
girl must either give time or pay a high premium; one of the foremost
decorators charges £100. It is not an employment for everybody; and a
good many ladies of taste have failed because they have not carried out
their work in a sufficiently responsible and business-like manner.
ESPÉRANCE (_Suggestions_).—If you shrink from nursing, it is difficult
to know what you can do in the way of philanthropic work without
possessing some private means. Perhaps through the church or chapel you
attend you could be put in the way of doing something for the poor,
such as district visiting. There are also, as you perhaps know, several
settlements in the East of London in which women work. For instance,
there is the St. Margaret’s House, Bethnal Green, a Church of England
Settlement, and there is also the Canning Town Settlement, 459, Barking
Road, Plaistow, which is unsectarian. You would probably find that
should the occasion arise for you to earn your living, the experience
gained by working in one of these settlements would help you to obtain
a position as matron of some charitable institution. There is now a
considerable demand for philanthropic workers who have been trained in
settlements.
LOIS (_Librarianship_).—We hardly think your scheme is feasible of
obtaining a librarianship in a charitable institution or in a ladies’
club. In a workmen’s reading-room and institute it is quite possible
you might obtain employment, or in a free library. The branches of
the Manchester Free Library employ women. Some post of that kind you
would probably fill well, as you have had several years’ experience
already, and have interested yourself in the work. Then there is a
large circulating library at Norwich, the property of a private firm,
where some women are engaged. Otherwise, if you wish to make a change,
you would have to seek a secretaryship, or post as book-keeper, as you
say; but this seems to us rather a pity as you have done so well as a
librarian.
INGEBORG (_Needlework_).—You had better communicate with the secretary
of the Society for the Advancement of Plain Needlework, 16, Stafford
Street, Marylebone Road, N.W., and ask what courses he would advise you
to pursue in order to obtain a teachership of needlework. Very likely
it may be thought best that you should pass the examination at the City
Guilds’ Institute, as this qualification would help you materially to
secure an appointment.
MEDICAL.
EGLANTINE.—If the teeth become loosened, and the gums show a tendency
to bleed on slight provocation, use a mouth-wash of tincture of myrrh;
add about a teaspoonful of tincture of myrrh to half a tumblerful
of water, and rinse out your mouth and wash your teeth with it. The
“tincture of myrrh and borax” of the shops is made by mixing tincture
of myrrh with glycerine of borax. Both these are pharmacopœial
preparations.
A JAPANESE GIRL.—In common parlance we use the term “fainting” to
express any condition in which a person acutely loses consciousness and
falls to the ground. The term therefore includes epilepsy, apoplexy,
sunstroke, acute syncope, and the condition which you wish to know
about, ordinary fainting fits, or semi-syncope. The fits, as everybody
knows, occur chiefly in young women and girls who are anæmic or
hysterical. They consist of a momentary weakness of the heart-beat, as
the result of which the brain is insufficiently supplied with blood,
and the person drops down “in a heap.” This sudden falling lowers the
position of the head, and so prevents the brain from becoming anæmic.
When a person faints, or feels faint, her head should be lowered; if
she is sitting in a chair, her head should be forced down to her knees;
if she is standing up, she should be placed upon her back. How often we
see kind-hearted persons carrying a fainting girl out of church, taking
care to keep her head well raised! Sal volatile, cold water and brandy
are sometimes given to fainting girls, but none of these is necessary,
and the brandy usually does harm. Though fainting looks very dangerous,
it is really very trivial. We have never seen a death during one of
these young women’s fainting fits.
LADY BABBIE.—It is related of a great physician that a girl once came
to him complaining, as you do, that she made horrible grimaces, moving
her scalp and eyebrows about in a most absurd manner, and making
herself look ridiculous. Of course he knew at once what was the matter,
and said to her, “Let me see you make these grimaces.” When she had
finished, he said to her, “What you have got the matter with you is
of no moment, but I warn you not to let anyone see you making those
grimaces, because when you do so you present a striking resemblance to
Mrs. ——” (a famous criminal of the time, then “wanted” by the police),
“and you may get run in if you don’t take care!” This so frightened
the girl that she never made grimaces again! This curious habit can be
cured, as you see. It is semi-involuntary—that is, it was originally
voluntary, but from constant repetition it has become a habit. It is
a habit from which you must break yourself. It is no good saying you
cannot—we say you can; but you must try, and at present avoid anything
which is liable to produce it. We have not asked you to do anything
impossible—“to do lessons or anything of _that_ sort”—but why do you
have such an objection “to do lessons or anything of _that_ sort?” You
will find that there are more unpleasant things in life than lessons!
MISCELLANEOUS.
REBECCA.—The invention of the gamut and the lines of the stave is
attributed to D’Arezzo, an Italian who flourished in the eleventh
century. At the Vatican, and in the King’s Library, Paris, there are
valuable copies of his famous _Micrologus_.
PERPLEXED.—We think it would be for your own happiness if you cleared
up the question, as no honest man has any right to be paying his
addresses to two women at once. If you have a mother, you had better
let her make the inquiry.
MARGUERITE.—The simnel-cakes made in Lent, at Eastertide, and
Christmas, in Shropshire and Herefordshire—more especially at
Shrewsbury—date back to great antiquity. Herrick speaks of them in
one of his epigrams, from which it appears that at Gloucester it was
the custom for young people to carry simnels to their mothers on
mid-Lent Sunday, called “Mothering Sunday.” In Mediæval Latin it is
called _siminellus_, and is derived from the Latin _simila_, or fine
flour. Like the religious signification of the hot-cross-buns, the
simnel-cakes were, in early times, marked with a figure of Christ or of
the Virgin Mary. The Pagan Saxons ate cakes in honour or commemoration
of their goddess Eastre, and, unable to prevent people from so doing
as a heathen custom, the Christian clergy had the buns marked with a
cross, to remind them of our Lord and His work of redemption.
TROUBLED ONE.—We are well acquainted with the infidel argument that
“the death of one man could not atone for, nor make restitution for,
the sins and the debts of millions of other men.” But first, Christ
was the Second Person of the Divine Trinity, and _One_ with the Father
and the Holy Ghost, and His was an infinite sacrifice for finite sin;
an infinite satisfaction for finite indebtedness. Secondly, as man’s
rebellion was against his Creator, and the unfulfilled obligations were
to Him, his Creator had an absolute right to punish, or forgive, to
claim, or to remit man’s debt _on His Own terms_. Thus, if He said, “I
will accept man’s acknowledgment of sin and indebtedness to Me, if he
offer a lamb in token thereof,” He had an indisputable right to do so;
and when He accepts a Divine, and therefore infinite sacrifice, He has
a right to do so. Who may presume to question it?
TWO CHUMS.—The phrase, “Once in a blue moon” means “very rarely,” and
the originator of the phrase exaggerated what it was designed to mean,
as it expresses not rarity only, but impossibility of occurrence, as
there is no such thing as a “blue” moon, any more than a personage
correctly designated “Blue Beard.”
CONSTANT READER appears to have overlooked many answers to her
question. Brides do not supply house-linen, nor furniture, nor any
household requisites. If her parents like to make a present of such a
nature, it is perfectly gratuitous. The bridegroom is naturally to have
a home suitable for the reception of his bride when he takes her from
her father’s house.
TOM TIT.—Certainly there are books on conchology. You have only to
inquire at a good librarian’s.
MACNALLY.—Inquire in the Will Department, Somerset House, and see those
of that date. You should give the names and probable date; 1s. is
charged for a search through each year, we believe. We have looked in
the _London Directory_ and the _Royal Red Book_, and did not see your
cousin’s address.
A. NEIGHBOUR.—To obtain any particulars respecting the writer Mary E.
Wilkins, you had better write to her publisher.
ANTIQUARY.—Of all the ancient nations of which we possess historical
records, Egypt stands first. According to Canon Rawlinson (quoted by
Dawson), history and archæological discoveries give the earliest date
as 2760 B.C.; of Babylon, as 2300 B.C.; of Phœnicia, as 1700 B.C.; of
Assyria, as 1500 B.C.; of India, as 1200 B.C., and of China, as 1154
B.C. Whether any new light has been thrown on the subject by more
recent investigations and discoveries than what we receive from Canon
Rawlinson, we are not at this moment prepared to say.
COUNTRY LASS.—Rosemary-tea is excellent for promoting the growth of the
hair. Chemists prepare it in a cleaner form than you can at home. You
cannot make your hair “wavy and glossy” unless the hair have flattened
sides to each tube (we mean if the hair be round it will not curl),
and if naturally rough, any gloss artificially produced would only be
through greasiness. Joan and Jane are feminines of the Hebrew name
John—“the gracious gift of God.”
AMATEUR STAMP COLLECTOR.—With reference to the uses made by the
authorities at the Asile des Billodes, at Le Locle, we can only repeat
what we were told by a Swiss lady, who has long maintained a girl
herself in this special institution, that “she believed the stamps were
sent to, and made into _papier maché_ at, Nüremberg”; so for whatever
other uses they are employed, or to whatever other destinations they
may be sent (perhaps exclusive of those at Le Locle, according to their
printed advertisement), it seems that a large proportion goes to that
place. We have the paper, a copy of which you are so good as to send,
and are quite ready to believe our friend was mistaken as regards the
Asile she helps to support.
* * * * *
[Transcriber’s Note: the following changes have been made to this text.
Page 579: Effiie to Effie—“and now Effie”.
Page 580: Soâne to Saône—“A Summer Voyage on the Saône”.
Symond’s to Symonds’—“J. A Symonds’”.
Edmond to Edmondo—“Edmondo de Amicis”.
Taines’ to Taine’s—“H. Taine’s”.
Page 581: Teneriffe, and its Seven Satellites to Tenerife, and its Six
Satellites.
Vesa to Vasa—“Gustavus Vasa”.
Alex. to Alec.—“Alec. Tweedie”.
Grohmann to Grohman—“W. A. Grohman”.
Page 583: conciousness to consciousness—“self-consciousness”.
Page 586: baking powder to baking-powder—“baking-powder. Make”.]