SCARCITY OF COOK'S

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1932, 30 August 1888, Page 3

SCARCITY OF COOK'S

« — A writer m the " Melbourne Argus" thuß ponrß forth the agony of his burd* n >d soul on the aubjeot of the " cook " : — Sir, — You'll be glad to hear that at last we have secured a cook who is almost certain to stay tbe week out. She can't oook (that does not matter, my wife does it), but she Is highly respeotabie, her grand father w«p a doctor, and she has a brother behind the counter, but she's modest and unassuming, notwithstanding that, as she puts it, %c she 'ates pride." When I heard the conditions, I suggested we might as well go without one, but my wife was horrified. " A bouse without a oook, the idea?" "Bnt, mv dear." I suggested, "you do all her work." "What does that matter when the world does not know It 1" This argument, as you will admit. Sir, was unanswerable. The conditions upon which this young lady consented to join our household 1 consider very reasonable She haa £1 a week and the spare room. She goes out three nights a week, and has the use of the piano, "just to keep up her music" She drops m about 9 p.m., just as we are comfortable over our coffee, with ''please ma'am, may I play a bit 1" We are afraid to say no, and so the whole of ua retreat to a den of my own at the back of the house, 9ft by Bft. We have alluwad ber to establish a complete form of domestic communism as to the ownership of linen etc. An yet we are not hippy. This walking about on tiptoe, this constant self-restraint, this necessity of always addressing her m words and tones fitting her worth and ber position, lest she should give notice, la undermining the constitutions of all uf us, Including— Yourß, Anxious.