CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4036, 28 June 1884, Page 6 (Supplement)

CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS.

Against all chambermaids, of whatsoever age or nationality, I launch the curse of bachelordom ? Because :

They always put the pillows at the oppb-. site end of tho room from the gas-burner, so that while you read and smoke before sleeping (as ia the ancient and honored custom of bachelors) you havo to hold your book aloft in an uncomfortable position to keep the light from dazzling your eyes. When thoy find tho pillows removed to the other end of the bed in the morning they receive not the suggestion in a friendly spirit; but, glorying in their absolute sovereignty, and unpitying your helplessness, they mako tho bed just as it was originally, and gloat in secret over the pang their tyranny will cause you. ; Always after that, when they find you havo'trnnsposed the pillows, they undo your work, and thus defy and seek to embitter tho life that God has given you.

If they cannot get the light in an inconvenient xjosition any other way they move tho bed.

If you pull your trunk out six inches from the wall,' so that tho lid will stay up when you open it, they always shove tho trunk back again. They do it on purpose.

■ They always put your boots into inaccessible places. They chieily enjoy depositing them a3 far under the bed as tho wall will permit. It is because this compels l you to get down in an undignified attitude and make wild sweeps for them in the dark with the bootjack, and swear.

They always put the match-box in some

other place. They hunt up a new place for it every day, and put up a bottle or some other perishable glass thing whero tho box stood before. This is to cause yon to break that glass thing, groping, in the dark, and get yourself into trouble. They are for ever and ever moving the furniture. When you come in in the night-, you can calculate on finding the bureau where the wardrobe was in the morning. And when you go out in the morning, if you leave the slop-bucket by the door and rocking chair by the window, when you come in at midnight, or thereabouts, you will fall over that rocking-chair and you will proceed toward the window and sit down in that sloptub. This will disgust you. They like that.

No matter where you put anything, they are not going to let it stay thero. They will take it and move it the first chance they get. It is their nature They always savo up all the old scraps of printed rubbish you throw on the floor, and stack them up carefully on the tablo, and start the fire with your valuable manuscripts. If thero is any one particular old scrap that you aro more down on than any other, and which you are gradually wearing your life out trying to get rid of, yon may take all the pains you possibly can in that direction, but it won't be of any use, because tliey will always fetch that old scrap book and put it in the same old place again every time. It does them good. If you leave the key in the door for convenience sake, they will carry it down to the office and give it to the clerk. They do this under the vile pretence of trying to protect your property from thieves; but actually they do it because they want to make you tramp back downstairs after it when you come home tired, or put you to the trouble of sending a waiter for it, which waiter will expect you to pay him something. In which case I supposo the degraded creatures divideThey kept always trying to make your bed before you get up, thus destroying your rest and inflicting agony upon you ; but after you get up, they don't come any moro till next day. They do all the mean things tliey can think of, and they do them just out of pure cussedness, and nothing else. Chambermaids arc dead to every human instinct. I havo cursed them in behalf of outraged bachelordom. They deserve it. If I can get a Bill through the Legislature abolishing chambermaids, I mean to do it.