IN SEARCH OF A SERVANT

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 27, 2 January 1862, Page 5 (Supplement)

IN SEARCH OF A SERVANT

A gentleiian (supposed to be Mr. Thackeray) who has been searching for a servant, writes thu to the Times : “ I selected the most promising advertisements in your columns, and wrote to appoint the advertisers to meet me in town. The first that called was a butler. He was a man of some personal appearance, which he evidently thought it his duty to cultivate. His loose-fitting coat was of irreproachable cut ; his waistcoat, no ‘ reach-me-down,’ but fitting without creases, and of spotless purity ; his gloves(twas a miracle how he got into them) were buttoned at the wrist ; his collar was turned down and his narrow magenta tie the nearest approach I ever saw to what Mr. Slick called ‘ the little ends of nothing whittled down.’ On being ushered into the room, ho said he had ‘embraced the earliest opportunity of obeying my summons.’ I perceived at. once Agag, he must be approached delicately, and should have felt some hesitation how to catechise so refined a personage, but that I soon found the question was not whether I should engage him, but whether he would engage me. Did he pay the bills ? Had he the entire charge of the celler, or was there a sanctum sanctorum of ■which I alone kept the key P My answers were not satisfactory. Had I a groom of the chambers ? No. In such case he concluded I had a valet ? I supposed his scrutiny of my dress had not encouraged exaggerated notions of the value of my ‘exuvia;,’ for, on my replying that the butler was the only man out of lively, and officiated as my valet I saw I was a doomed man. For form’s sake, however, he kindly consented to give me one more trial, and inquired whether, under these circumstances, it would be expected of him to bring in tea and coffee after dinner. I told him that I regretted that such would bo the case, and" ho must, indeed, be prepared for any emergency. That I did not think it likely I should ever ask him to make the fourth in a quadrille, but that he would, in my house, be expected to do everything he was told—except feed the pigs. ‘ That,’ said I mildly, ‘ I do myself.’ On my looking up to see the effect of my last observation, he was disappearing in the doorway. It is my firm belief that, had I attempted to detain him, he would have fled like Joseph, leaving his garments behind. The next applicant was a cook and housekeeper. She was pleased slightly to touch on her autobiography,—just sufficient to inform me that she had ‘always lived in the best of families,’ and then like the butler, proceeded to ascertain whether I should suit her. Her first question, also, was— Did she pay the bills ? Did I come to town every year P M hen in the country did the farm supply the house, and did I kill one sheep or two per week ? When in town did I have hampers of fruit and vegetables up regular, which was mostly ill-convenient ?’ When my examination was at an end X said, ‘ Mrs. Jones, you were onlv three months at your last place, nine at the proviou. one, eleven at the one before that. It seems these are rather short periods.’ * Oh !’ said she, ‘ they gooses of missusses ; but in course your lady keeps hirself to hirself.’ Now, sir, in declining Mrs. J one’s services it is possible-1 may have lost a valuable servant, who could have cooked for mo by Dean Ramsay in his * Reminiscences of Scottish Character,’ who, on receiveing notice from his mistress, quietly replied, ‘ Na, na, my lady : I druve ye to your marriage, and shall stay to drive ye to your burial.’ Still, I am glad I did not take for her a first-class ticket into Northamptonshire.

This is no coloured statement. The whole system of service, as at present understood in England, is rotten at the core. ‘ All play and all pay’ is the cry, and ‘ meat meals five times a day and port and sherry kitchen wines,’ the only maxim of the servants’ hall!”