DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4554, 23 April 1923, Page 4

DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

RAPIDLY DISAPPEARING. Another peculiarly British intitution, “ the well-trained domestic servant,’’ is rapidly disappearing ; in fact it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the type is almost extinct. Time was when the same domestic staff was to be found in the same household- for years. Many of its members grew old in the service and were pensioned on ’retirement; others remained until they married —not always very early in life. But everywhere one goes to-day, in town and country alike, there is a constant succession of new faces. Some go because of their complete incompetence; others because they must always be moving on. “I like change,’’ said one of the latter class recently. “I never stay in any place more than a couple of months.’’ All sorts of attempts have been, and are being, made to make domestic service more attractive. “ Hours off’’ and “days out” have never been so liberally provided as they are now, wages are higher than they have ever been before, and the comfort of a domestic staff is studied in a manner which would have shocked the housewife of a generation of greater “sensibility” into something very nearty approaching a fit. But all these things have proved of not slightest avail. Domestic service is as unpopular as ever. Official figures just dssued by the Ministry of Labour show that there were on January 1 no fewer th in 254,832 y'omen and 39,248 girls registered as unemployed in Great Britain and North Ireland During the preceding month 12,141 vacancies for women in domestic service were notified to the Labour |l;xchanges, but only 7,699 jobs wee filled ! Again, out of 5,540 jobs offered to resident domestic' servants, only 2,272 were accepted. No wonder poor madam is looking worried!