A FARM DOMESTIC'S DUTIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1088, 24 April 1913, Page 4

A FARM DOMESTIC'S DUTIES.

“No wonder country mistresses find difficulty in getting decent girls to do their housework." Thus writes the father of a girl who has taken a place as “general” in a “well-to-do Canterbury farmer’s home" in order to supplement a a rather slender family income and to gain experience. “She is a strong, capable girl,” the indignant parent says, “and she has had a good home training, being a good cook and a willing worker." He finds no fault with the wages, though xos a week seems little enough for a competent “general,” but he objects to the long hours and the absence of the most ordinary comforts. “The girl is about from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and daring the whole day she has not a minute to call her own, often having to leave her own meals to brush Master Tommy’s boots or to get a cup of tea for the young ladies in the best parlour." And this is not the worst trouble. “There are no holidays, no time for church, no chance for her own sewing or reading." The girl, so the father says, is often left in charge of the house and the small children when the master and the mistress are away with the older daughters, and at such times she has to pfovide meals for rough farm hands, who are not always nice in their behaviour. The strange part of the story is that she clings to her place rather than take employment in town, because she prefers life in the country to what she imagines life in the city would be. If (says the Tyttelton Times) lips case is typical of domestic service in the' country, the wonder is not that farmers’ wives find difficulty in getting girls, but that they manage to get them at all.