NEW ZEALAND MAID SERVANTS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1524, 23 June 1873, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND MAID SERVANTS.

The following ia from Mr Anthony Trollope's book, "Australia and New Zealand" : —

The one greit complaint made by the ladies who occupy these houses — the one sorrow, indeed, of the matrons of New Zealand — arises from the dearth of maid servants. Sometimes no domestic servant can be had at all, for love or money, and the mistress of the house with her daughters, if she have any, is constrained to cook the dinner and make the beds. Sometimes a lass who knows nothing will consent to come into a house (and be taught how to do. house-work at the rate of L4O per annum, with a special proviso that she is to be allowed to go out two evenings a week to learn choral singing in the music-hall. By more than two or three ladies my sympathy was demanded on account of these sufferings, and I was asljsd whether a country must not he in a bad way in which the ordinary comfort of female attendance could not be had when it was wanted. Of course I sympathised. It is hard upon a pretty young mother with three or four children that should be left to do everything for herself. But I could not help suggesting that the'young woman's view of the case was quite as important as the matron's, and that if it was a bad place for tlidse who wanted, to, hire maid servants, it must be a very good place for the girls who wanted to be hired. The maid servants- aide of- the question is quite as important as the mistress's: The truth is, that in such a town as Christchurch a girl of twenty or twenty-three can earn from L3O to L4O a year and a comfortable home, with no oppressively hard work ; and if she be well conducted and of decent appearance, : she is sure to get a husband who oan keep a house over, her head. For such persons New Zealand ia a paradise. It is not only that they get so many more of the good things of the world than would ever come in their way in England, but that they stand relatively in so much higher a position in reference 'to the world i around them. The very tone in which | a maid servant speaks to you in New Zealand, her quite little . joke, her familiar smile, her.easy manner, tell you at once that the badge of servitude is not heavy upon her. She takes yovir. .wages and makes your bed and hands your plate— but she does not consider herself to be of an order of beings different from your order, Many who have been acoustomed to ba served all their lives may not like this. If so, they had better not live in New Zealand. But if we look at the matter from the maid-servants' side, we cannot fail to find that* there is much comfort in it. I would advise no young lady to go out to any Colony either to get a husband or- to be a governess, or to win her bread after any so-called lady-like fashion, She may suffer much before she can supesed, ov may probably fail altogether, But any well-behaved young woman who now earns Ll6 as a housemaid in England would find in New Zealand a much happier home.