SERVANTS AND MISTRESSES.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 78, 4 August 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

SERVANTS AND MISTRESSES.

BT A SMALL BEER CHROKICLEE. (From All the Year Round.) In the course of a certain French trial which took place quite recently, some particulars came out bearing so remarkably upon the deplorable relations of maid and mistress that I will venture to translate them literally for the reader's benefit. " What," says the writer in the French journal, from which I quote — ; "what was the domestic servant otA former years? Generally speaking, she came up from the country, young, , I steady, ignorant, and a kind of treaty or 1 agreement was entered into between her and her employer, something of the sort: 'In your native village you were accustomed to cat black bread, you were overwhelmed with work naturally repugnant to you ; you were alternately frozen with cold and scorched with heat, and you were in the habit of sleeping on a sorry straw mattrass. Come from your village to Paris, and we will give you white bread, you shall share our table, and our dwelling; you shall form one of our household ; and at our death we will leave you a provision for the remainder of your days.' " We leave it to a certain lady, called as witness in a case tried before the Tribunal Correctional to tell us what the domestic servant of our day Is like. " Thb Lady. — During a period of six "months I have had four servants, and I am now looking out for a fifth, without the least hope of finding one who will suit me better than the others. It is not that the servants were unsuitable when they first came to my place, for I had taken the precaution of getting them in every case from the country, and of convincing myself of their honesty and good behaviour : but the house in which 1 live, there is a servant on the first floor who has taken upon herself the task of: forming all the servants in the neighborhood. Not satisfied with giving them her advice by word of mouth, this person hands them a written programme. And a copy of that programme, found in the apartment of my domestic, I now hand into Court. *' PROGRAMME. " The masters are no better than we are. They pay us, and we serve them ; we are quits. "* We only owe our service to our masters ; that service done, our time is our own property ; a servant should always reserve to herself two hours in the course of the day, between breakfast and dinner, and the right to absent herself for twenty-four hours once every fortnight. " More than this, a servant who has ■ any self-respect ought : 1. To go to market unaccompanied by her mistress ; 2. Nofc to demean herself by scrubbing or polishing ; 3. She should not permit any interference with her affairs j or her dress ; 5. She should receive in her kitchen anyone she thinks proper to receive ; 5. Sbe should not allow any notice to be taken of her letters ; 6. She should wear crinoline, a long shawl, and a bonnet ; 7. She should demand increase of wages every three months; 8. She should require leave of absence for a fortnight twice in the coarse of every year, ostensibly in Order to visit her relations ; 9. She should leave any place in which it was not the custom to make presents at the end of two months' service."