DOMESTIC SERVICE FOR GENTLEWOMEN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4589, 4 December 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

DOMESTIC SERVICE FOR GENTLEWOMEN.

- - - (iStendurd,"August 30.) ~ '■■-.sh:. Nobody cau deny the 1 great interest ;ot the question ;dealt with 1 by Mis. Crawshay in her paper read last Thursday before the British Association at Bristol. ’■* One of the most prominent problems of the age is the difficulty of finding employment for ladies’in reduced circumstances, and no well-meant effort to solve it should be denied its tribute of respect. .Mrs. Crawshay’s suggestion is, that ladies should be* employed as domestic servants, whom, in order to soften down the proposal, she calls by the American name of “ helps” and she has some right to speak on the subject, as she 1 has 1 tried the experiment in her own house. There is certainly this much in favor of her .scheme, that while some ladies cannot get a , living, other ladies cannot get servants. Here is the work for which there is a scarcity of workers, and there are the workers for whom there is » scarcity of work. Why not bring the two together, the supply to the demand? The class from which our domestic servants;used, formerly to bo recruited is growing less and less walling to supply them: while those - who 1 do go to service are far more troublesome and independent than is at j all agreeable to their; employers. An influx into the market of a superior class of servants would have the effect, perhaps, of bringing them to’their senses. And we have no doubt that ladies, like gentlemen, would work, if they undertook to do it, much more thoroughly and conscientiously than the present race * of•’ servants. They are just as strong, and education always teaches people more or less to take pride in doing good work. Wo would back half'a dozen young ladies to scrub floors, make beds, clean plate, and wait at table against any half-dozen girls taken indiscriminately from the register office. We have no doubt of their ability, therefore, to 1 "make good servants. And some 1 of our, readers may remember, perhaps, in one of Mr. Peacock's novels, the description of a Louse ’ where the master was waited upon, in all iuuooenoJ, by six or seven very pretty girls, all well educated add capable of appreciating literature. ’ It is true they were not “ ladies ” and they did net scrub the floors. But; they had received the education of ladies, and showed how superior it made them to the ordinary class of servants for a great many menial occupations. We do not think there is much in the objection that by using ladles for servants we should be cutting blocks with razors. It is better for thb razors to cut blocks than to be idle and rust. The real objection to. plan lias deeper than this ; namely, that it would be making; money alone the test of social position, to the exclusion of birth and culture. When ! the real 1 lady was in .the kitoluav and'the Vidgkr parvenu 1 in the parlor, a social revolution would he inaugurated, the end of which nobody can tell. This* is the Strong theoretical objection to Mrs. Crawshay’s scheme. But the practical are just as strong. Ladies might be found quite capable of household work, and might beat the present race of servants on their own ground. But that is not the point. I Tho question is how are they to mix- with : them, and how if they do not mix with them they are to retain the character of servants. Mrs. Crawshay tried the experiment for twelve months. During that time she employed ladies as her upper servants, and not a single change took place among the women servants during tho whole time. In the next ten mouths, when the superior's were not ladies, she had no less than seven changes, T his is satisfactory,.»£ course, as.fax as But it must: bo eyident to everybody that a.much louder experiment would be necessary to enable us to form anything like a trustworthy deduction. But the worst of Mrs. Crawshay’s paper is that it omits the very thing which everybody will most want to know, namely, on what terms the lady servants lived with the others; She tells us, indeed, 1 that she allowed them to use the front door, but owns "that this was

a mistake, 1 from which we may infer that her plan contemplates, their • Tiexng,. treated as servants, and not as something halfway between servants and companions. Indeed, if she only meant the latter, the paper was superfluous, because plenty of ladies are in that situation as it is. And we - must presume, therefore, that by lady servants she means ladies who, to use a common phrase, sink their gentility and work and live like other household domestics. We want to know, therefore, how these lady helps get on with their fellow-servants. If they constitute a privileged class, on a:level with male servants out of livery, how are they expected to comport themselves' towards these . if tney find it easy work to regulate their demeanor towards a scullerymaid, how do they manage with the butler? If there is a“Wv s room downstairs, there is also a “ gentleman s, the inmates of which would probably feel themselves quite on a level with their female neighbors. Mrs. Crawshay cannot mean that girl brought up in the .position of a lady till nineteen or twenty years of age could endure to associate on familiar terms with the butlers and valets. Would Mrs. Crawshay hereelf desire it ? We wish to say nothing against that very estimable .class of society ..to whom we are indebted for,so much,'that is delightful both to the eye and to the taste. Still a prejudice exists which denies that they, are associates for young ladies. And if these can only reap the benefit of Mrs. Crawshay’s charitable device by changing their natures, we should be unwilling to- congratulate themon the result. If ladies are to turn housemaids it seems to us that we must go a step further, and induce gentlemen to turn footmen. This new version of “ High Life Below Stairs ” would have its advantages, inasmuch as the same girl might at .once.be lady’s maid and governess, and the same gentleman both brush his young master s clothes' and prepare him lor Eton or; Oxford. The only difficulty would be how to dispose of those who are now valets and ladies maids? The evils which Mrs. Crawshayßas endea- p vored ' to -mitigate by ’this well-intentioned but impracticable scheme, staves us in the face every day. But the subject bristles with difficulties, and. they cahuot.be met to any appreciable extent by admitting ladies merely to one new department of labor. ■ Make them head nurses,; says Mrs. Gray* at Bristol. By all means, and under nurses too; but when you have done that, what impression .has been made oh the growing mass of young women who have been brought up as ladies, with no prospect from the beginning except marriage '!■ If this fails them, where are they ? , The largemajority of destitute middle-aged ladies have themselves been girls at one time. And girls will not give- up the* struggle while there is a chance left. Here, then, is a, fresh: difficulty. If ladies are to make good, servants, they, like other people, must begin young. But what lady would begin young while she’ had a chance of marriage ?• In short;-the difficulties which surround : this particular scheme are so multitudinous that the moment one is dropped another starts up. ,’\Ve must own, too, that as regards the case of women in'general the'more one thinks ofrit the more one ■is perplexed. Return to a healthier state of .society, says one manTfrearly marriages, find a .simpler way of living in general. But if more women, were married more. also' would be hbrm.ahd the old difficulty would recur. Let 'them- practise as doctors and lawyers, says, another,, But we have already more: doctors and -lawyers than we want. And the, demand, we hope,, will not increase in proportion to the increase of population. We are afraid that in this case women must continue, as they’ have always done, to take their chance with men.