DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 965, 11 August 1903, Page 4

DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

A writer in the Wellington Times states: I noticed recently the Hon. James Carroll presented a petition from 600 women in Poverty Bay district asking for the immigration of young women to the colony to act as domestic servants. This does not speak well for the colony. Has domestic service become so obnoxious to our young ladies (I presume I must call them that) that they are too proud to accept respectable positions at good wages. I fear our education system has something to answer for good as it is. Then the writer perpetrates some at-' rocious poetry of which the following is a sample:—

Then there are sundry classes, especially for lasses. Where they should learn to sew and how to cook; Can they fasten on a button, or cook a bit of mutton, When they’ve left their school, their teacher and their book ? They study mathematics, and equations termed quadratics, Euclid and Algebra, and subjects quite abstruse; But I fear they’d think it shocking to have to mend a stocking, So their knowledge is of little ornament or use. They then got quite unsettled, and often feel much nettled If domestic sorvive is offered them at all; ’Tis “infra dig” to scrub, or stand at washing tub, But pride, alas, goes oft before a fall. Let us have sound education, without so much sensation. — Teach our lassies to be useful! pure and kind; I First as good servants, then good wives, they will spend most happy lives, And as mistresses themselves ono day they’ll find. But a word or two of reason will no* 1 be out of season. To those ladies who employ a servant maid,— Be generous to slight failings, avoid ill. tempered railings, And don't be always ready to upbraid. Perhaps there was a time when you also had to climb, / Step by step to your present happy state; If you must put on Borne style, pray do it with a smile, And maid and mistress will get along first-rate.